On building a better world

September Column for AZIndiaTimes:

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It is easy to theorize and proclaim esoteric opinions when you’re a bachelor. Much harder to do so once you’re married. Of course, it’s hard to declare anything original after you’re married but, stale marital jokes aside, marriage bestows on you a responsibility towards society. You’re not an arrogant-genius-outsider anymore telling the world what’s wrong with it. If anything, you’re part of the establishment now. You have been assimilated.

After all, I’ve been married only 26 days as of writing this so I’m no mouthpiece for all married men but the difference after marriage is real and palpable. The essence of bachelor life, even if you’re in a relationship, is about being unmoored. It is about making the best of every moment as you keep drifting to nowhereland. It is about hungry midnight searches for open restaurants, philosophical discussions over drinks with friends, long conversations on footpaths; It’s about having the time and energy to argue and fight over arcane topics simply because you have nothing useful to worry about. As a bachelor, the society was my adversary, the arrogant giant that was unwilling to change its ludicrous habits and I had taken it upon myself to shout at the top of my voice all that was wrong with it. Being a bachelor is about questioning all authority and doing everything to subvert it, even at the cost of one’s own detriment. It is about being naive and stupid, about being starry-eyes and believing in your ability to shape the world according to your will. It comes from the confidence of being constantly surrounded by friends, of being proud of your intellect and abilities, of being able to live like a spartan and to tell people who love you to get used to you. It is the life of a narcissistic. And it’s great fun as long as it lasts.

Getting married is a wonderful thing. I’ve never felt more special in my life than on my wedding day. I had been against traditional marriage not just because of the preposterously high cost but also because of my belief that the rituals are empty. (Even if they were once filled with meaning, we have debased them too much for them to have any sanctity left.) Yet, on that day, seeing that so many people turned up to wish us well, albeit for a variety of reasons, something changed.

There is a conspicuous change of lifestyle after marriage. I wear a watch, shave more often, dress better, make a point to greet neighbours, understand that money can be a source of good, see the class structure more clearly and am making an effort to uphold it for my advantage. I fret less about the Hows and Whys of every action and worry more about my comfort and happiness. I’m doing everything I mocked in others until a month ago. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, because I’m acknowledging the change. A turncloak, maybe. I don’t tell her, Accept me or get lost, like I told others. I’m more considerate of the impact my behaviour in the society will have on her. Till now, I was part of someone else’s family (my mother’s) but now I’m beginning my own. And that realization gives me immense power and responsibility.

At least in the urban, middle-class India that I live in, family is the primary block of society. The Grihasta Ashram is the centre of the ecosystem. The other Ashramas contribute immensely to the society but they need the householder to survive and thrive. The change in perspective has been quite sudden. Again, it has only been 26 days so my opinions could be half baked. Yet I can’t deny I’m enjoying the transition. Life has become less about making a mark for myself on the cold, magnificent linearity of time and more about focusing on the present moment and making the world a slightly better place right now. Reality has become more real. When I write my To-Do list these days, I write more prosaic stuff than End World Poverty and Win an Oscar. The size of my world has shrunk to a more manageable size. I’m the lord of my world instead of being a loner in the background in someone else’s. Actions and rewards are more tangible. I feel less alone. The world didn’t give a hoot when I yelled suggestions at it. However, now I have an opportunity to build a better world from scratch, to implement and learn from my thoughts and experiments, opinions and ideas, dreams and fantasies. I’ve been asked to transition from critic to creator. Let’s see how that goes.

“All right, Mr. Wrightman, I gotta bat. Let me just leave you with this thought. You love the Sox, but have they ever loved you back?” -Fever Pitch

Discipline is all we have

My AZIndiaTimes column for August.

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“Discipline is freedom” -Jocko Willink

Where do thoughts come from? If we really are Homo Sapiens, Wise Men, how do we traverse from millions of random transient thoughts to wisdom. I have been reading that, evolutionarily speaking, we developed the ability to think to perform sophisticated action. Then what is the place of pure thought, echoing Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum, that does not always translate into physical action in our material world?

“We are spiritual beings dabbling with the material” -Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

We are told all roads to self-realization/ enlightenment are paved with discipline. On one hand, there is conscious penance that Yogis, sages, philosophers and artists do, wherein they repeat a few rituals and seek to continuously evolve in it to eventually reach higher states. On the other hand, there are the sufis and the mystics, the Thyagarajas and the Rumis, whose discipline is more inherent in the fact that their extraordinary faith in and receptivity to a higher order fuels their junoon thereby closing the feedback loop. Their devotion is so complete that they can reach transcendental states by the sheer force of their longing that invariably translates into sustained, disciplined action over a long period of time.

“Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work” -Gustave Flaubert

I have been obsessed with discipline for a long time. I have tried and failed in applying so many self-help theories that that ability to not see through a plan has in itself become habit. The next time I pick up a new self-help book, I’m sure I won’t finish it. (It could also be argued that I read every book like a self-help book because I try to pick stuff from it to learn to live a better life. I must confess I’m not too pleased with that ability.) Despite failing so many times, I still find an irrepressible need to “improve” my life. I guess it’s a cultural thing. We live in an age of efficiency where mainstream media bombards us with our inadequacies and relentlessly repeats that we should strive to be “our best selves”. Every year, thousands of self-help books are written, hundreds of programmes are conducted for everyone from mid-level managers to technology CEOs telling them how they can improve the turnover of their companies by becoming more empathetic, or getting in touch with their inner selves, or understanding Karmic balance, tens of celebrity speakers use stories and methodologies from ancient religions and folktales, recycle them to fit the present context and sell them to well-meaning, unsuspecting but nevertheless conformist masses. People want to become more efficient, and thereby rich and happy, and like our ancestors first turned to Gods, to priests, then to philosophers and eventually to CEOs, they turn to self-help gurus and new-age spiritual teachers. They, as in we, are engrossed with four-hour work weeks, 10000-hour rules, eating frogs, influencing people and growing rich. Do we have a natural inclination for being excellent sheep?

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.” -Arthur Schopenhauer

As a lifelong procrastinator, I am enamoured by the idea of repeating a ritual everyday, no matter what, because it truly feels like freedom- from the intoxicating swerves of whim, from paralyzing nihilism, from the indecipherable random acts that define our lives, from the tyranny of inexplicable, inarticulable thought, from the impenetrable darkness of the human heart. To be disciplined, to re-enact a series of manoeuvres everyday in an attempt to get ready for divine inspiration seems like the only thing we can do to hold onto a sense of reality. True to form, even my procrastination is not disciplined. I’m frequently overcome by a need to stick to discipline every few weeks.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up” -Woody Allen

It would have been easier, but way less fun, if this was the only set of thoughts in my head. In true postmodernist tradition, another set of thoughts question these assumptions. Okay, even if I buy that discipline is the axe that will help break chains of habitual cause-and-effect, how do I cultivate it? Can we control our thoughts?- If thoughts and actions are part of a closed loop, feeding off each other, how do you discern the validity of a thought if not by experience? Since that experience is our’s, do we not give more value to it (confirmation bias) and continue to live under the illusion that our thoughts and beliefs are correct? How can I leap out of my Karmic cycle if it is all I know. If one set of thoughts tell me discipline is good, and when trying to apply it, another set says any work without inspiration is a waste, who do I listen to? Is there a hierarchy of thoughts? Is writer’s block just laziness or a ‘genuine’ lack of churn that needs unpredicted impetus? In The Knowledge illusion, the authors argue that an individual mind is not equipped enough to traverse through the complex world we have built and inhabit. We are nodes in the most evolved brain called the human ecosystem. So, maybe, the crowd is wise. However, like Arendt argues in The Banality of Evil, the crowd is less empathetic and more subservient to the handed-down thought than an individual. Does that mean the original thinker influences the the society for the better? Whereth lies salvation?

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

How do I find balance between the plateaued learning graph of discipline and the unexpected magic of whimsy? How do I get into a good relationship with the mind I don’t completely understand but that has infinite power to manipulate me? Where do I and my mind meet? I will continue to ask questions. I’m sure I’ll find solace in answers but it will will be short-lived. Certainty is death but it is also comforting. Flux is scary but it is also life-affirming. Sticking to a discipline is the regression testing mechanism I need to follow to keep questioning the basis of my assumptions. Focused meandering- A contradiction of terms. When opposites come together, something entirely new is created. That is what I’ll try do with discipline and impulse. We can’t control inspiration, discipline is all we have.

Hypocrisy and its misuses

My AZIndiaTimes column for July.

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I hate hypocrites. Atleast I did until I realized how big a hypocrite I was. I wear gemstones while publicly questioning the validity of its preached uses. I do not really believe in Drishti Dosha but after a great day spent, I ask Amma to remove Drishti. I profess people to boycott products that are manufactured by torturing animals yet I relish my Lassis and Omelettes. I waft lyrical about the need to stand-up to arbitrary authority while I continue to bribe policemen or ignore a fight on the road where ten people beat-up one person. I tell young people to chase their dreams and follow their passions while I happen to be yet another Code Coolie constantly asking myself if I’m just being lazy. What is going on here?

We live in an age of authenticity. Every facet of our popular culture tells us to embrace our true self and give a middle finger to whatever anyone chooses to think of our behaviour. I bought that idea completely. My physical appearance and words give the impression that I am an independent, free thinking individual who is dictated only by the whims of his conscience. My actions, nevertheless, point in the opposite direction. For all my ranting and yelling, cribbing and crying, I am just like many- I neither have the courage nor the strength to swim against the tide and test my ideas and assumptions against reality.

“Inside every cynic, there is a disappointed idealist” -George Carlin

Truth be told, I’m not even an idealist as much as a naive romantic. Dim-witted too. I thought life was going to be a joy ride. I tell people life doesn’t owe us anything. Yet, I feel pissed when something does not go according to plan. I think we most firmly negate beliefs we are most obsessed with. Like how self-deprecating humour is not humility; It is a reaction of people who think they are smart enough to know that arrogance removes the sheen of their image. I rage so many tirades against hypocrisy ( or for that matter capitalism, globalization, English-speaking urban class, software etc. ) because I know I have been immensely benefited by all these happenings and yet don’t want my social circle to think I had these advantages- First-world problems. It is astounding to see the depth to which hypocrisy has seeped into my being so much so that I stopped questioning the validity of my beliefs and the reason for my actions a long time ago.

“Hypocrisy is the homange vice pays to virtue” -Francois de La Rochefoucauld

These thoughts, and as an extension the questions I have been asking myself, came when my girlfriend jokingly commented on how big a hypocrite I was for the huge disparity between my words and my actions. The reason I was so blind to my own failings is probably because, like they say, “we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions”. I was also reading about Karma Siddhantam around that time and it had raised interesting questions in my head about the Karmic effects of thoughts vs actions. The law says that a person should be judged by his actions and not his thoughts. In that case, all the best intentions in the world will not bring about my salvation. Like the authors argue in The Knowledge Illusion, Thinking evolved because we had to construct a model in our heads that corresponds in critical ways to the way the world is. Thought is for action. Action without thought is animalistic and thought that does not manifest into action is pointless.

Hypocrisy arises, to put it dramatically, because of a conflict between the head and the heart. The heart simply believes; The head wants rational explanations. And when there is a disagreement, we become superstitious, or fake smile at people, or pretend to not see unpopular colleagues, or profusely promise people we’ll help them and not take their calls. It is not pleasant but it has become so inherent to modern-day, urban living that we don’t stop to think about it. Hypocrisy is neither about conviction nor confusion but about courage. It is easy to spew well-meaning objectives; Impossibly tough to stand by them. Most adults give up the first part and learn to live false lives. I’m glad I’m still at juncture when tough thoughts continue to crop up. Choosing how to live though is where the battle will be won or lost.

“..and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” -Albus Dumbledore

On passing judgements

My AZIndiaTimes column for June.

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We make judgements all the time. Making them is easy. You get some inputs when you meet a person and based on your state of mind and what prior knowledge you have of similar situations, you form an image of the person. These are what we call First Impressions. From what little knowledge I have of evolutionary psychology, it’s System 1 that is making these snap judgements. Our limbic system makes these calls- for a part of the body that has not evolved much over the last 50000 years and is still stuck in the African savannah, it is imperative to gather as much information about a foreign body as soon as it can. It worked for simpler times.

But we now live in a mind-bogglingly complex world that, forget System 1 (the automatic, intuitive part of the brain), even our more evolved System 2 (analytical, rational part) cannot begin to understand. Yet we still choose to judge people based on our first impressions. We do not live in such hostile environments to need to make those conclusive approximations. The heuristics are just not good enough especially when we put our phenomenal imagination to work even before meeting the other person.

More of life happens in our heads than out in the real world. Thousands of intentions can manifest into only tens of actions. So should we judge a person by his motivations or the shape of his actions? Which raises two important questions: 1. Can we ever judge a person based on a handful of insulated interactions or do we need an accumulation of thousands of moments to even get a brief idea of what the person is like? 2. Presuming we can get a fair idea of how he might behave in the future, do we still have the right to moral grandstanding? When the personality of a person is a fairly fluid concept that is under constant change, how valid are previously held notions?

‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.’ - Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is a universe inside a person, literally, for those who believe in Advaita. True, we cannot deal with notions as abstract as soul and essence if we are expected to learn as much about a person as fast as we can but can then one deign to know all about someone based on one meeting; especially because we always walk in with preconceived notions. I love the game Chinese Whispers because it conclusively proves we don’t hear and transfer what has been said but only that we’re conducive to listen. What Social theorists call the Latitude of Acceptance. Nothing I say is going to make an impact on you as long as you sit on the assumptions that you brought from home. All good will come across as pretence and all bad as proof.

Judgement, for the most part, has nothing to do with rational thought. It stems from a person’s ego, and like almost everything that’s got to do the ego, everyone else has to be condemned to a lower pedestal. Admittedly, humans are not all rational beings and the opinion of instinct has to be given substantial weight, and I know from experience that it’s a fairly accurate indicator. The problem comes when we use one of instinct and rationality to undermine the other based on our need to satiate the ego.

'A man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.' - Ayn Rand

From what I’ve been studying about my behaviour, I see that instinct serves the ego. Instinct is a hack created by the brain to ensure it doesn’t have to take unnecessary load processing all new information unless its very important. Like all hacky systems, its core function is to see to it that most new cases fall into as few generic buckets as possible. And lo, we have the stereotype.

I think that the path to a person’s mind is like a funnel. Most of what comes in is junk and has to be distilled for persistence. But snap judgement, by definition, comes from the sources closest to the exit to ensure processing power is not wasted. This is also fine until we start tying instinct to the ego. That, then, becomes an insidious combination. Now not only are we saying stuff without thinking rationally but because we’ve tied our fragile personalities to it, we will find ways to subvert all new information until it fits our theories.

I’m not saying rationality is supposed to be the only mode of thought. Instinct is unparalleled in exigencies. Intuition and faith, things that nudge us in directions we can’t really articulate, are also modes of thought that make us human. We need to cherish them. The problem exacerbates when we act as deterrents to our own long-term good because of our obsession with self-image. From what little I’ve learnt from Advaita Vedanta and Sufism, I understand that annihilation of the ego is the final step on the path to self-realization and liberation. Ego is a collection of thoughts that hold onto a tiny part of the events of the universe and say, ‘This is you’. And we guard it vehemently because we think it makes us unique, gives meaning to our life. It is the brittle branch of a tree that we hold tightly to stop being pushed down the flooding river. Yet, until we let go of that little branch, how will be ever open our arms wide enough to embrace the universe?

Not only do we not comprehend the repercussions of our actions but also in most cases don’t understand our own motivations. Then do we really have a right judging someone else for their behaviour? I’m not saying we need to descend into a meaningless world. I’m saying we should be doing Karma without having to feel smug about it.

‘Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.’ - David Foster Wallace

What I call my personality is just one certain arrangement of a handful of experiences. If I had different experiences or in another order, would I have been another person? If yes, why should I be so attached to these? If not, what would change even if I let go? What is this ‘I’ that I’m so obsessed with and is it helping me live a better life?

We are all blind men trying to describe the elephant. It is imperative we question the basis of our assumptions and tread gently across this delicate, wonderful life.

life's happening in bursts

May has been crazy. Things didn't move for a long time and now suddenly they're moving so fast I feel disoriented. I'm not complaining though. Like I was telling Sravani, good things are happening so we better cram as many during this wonderful phase. I want it to last longer but I'm reading Vidhaata, on Amma's express recommendation, and I'm not sure how much of good Karma I have left to spend. We'll talk about all that later. I also have to send Rajanna that essay but haven't had the time, or truth be the told the inclination, to write it. So I keep sending him apology mails with promises of submitting it that weekend. That apart, I ain't too pleased with June's column. It clearly reflects a shoddy job. But I keep starting at the brink of deadline and don't get enough time to rewrite. I have to take writing more seriously if I want to call myself even an amateur writer. Boxing has been a dream all last week. I sprained my leg badly yesterday so I'm out of action for a while. So, yeah, very happy right now. Life's this weird thing; The moment you make conclusive assumptions, it finds ways to completely overturn them.

That's about it for now. Should come back soon with a more elaborate update. Till then, I present another tirade against consumerism.

Damn the IPL

I don’t know how many of you watch the Indian Premier League but I watch it everyday and detest myself for doing it. For those of you uninitiated, IPL is a Cricket tournament similar to the NFL but compressed to a duration of about 45 days. It is, what the organizers and sponsors call, Cricketainment. Sportsmen are turned into human billboards, cheerleaders dance at every boundary and wicket, the sponsors buy naming rights to scoring shots (Eg: the commentators announce a six as “That’s a Yes Bank Maximum”) and players are made to chat with the commentators during play. It is rambunctious, repugnant and in the perverse way some people say it, Totally Desi.

I can’t stop watching it everyday with my flatmates. And after every delivery, I mutter profanities at the cheap thrills of it all. My Superego is disgusted but my Id is transfixed. Like any well written sitcom, if you don’t think too much about the conceit, the spectacle is marvelous. The IPL hires some of the smartest minds money can buy and it is their job to ensure I am hypnotized by the performance, not think about the meaning of it all and eventually buy the umpteen products (ranging from Cola and Pizza to Smartphones and SUVs) whose ads I’m bombarded with.

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” -Jeff Hammerbacher

Don’t get me wrong, the prospect of seeing some of the finest athletes play at the pinnacle of their abilities is indeed a great experience. They are the substance on which this glitz exists. But it irks me to see them treated as no better than reality TV stars. And this where Neil Postman makes so much sense again, “The problem with television is not that it provides entertainment. The problem is that it brings down everything to the level of entertainment.” And entertainment is the buzzword of our generation. We act as if we deserve it. So I set out to understand what exactly the word meant-

The action of providing or being provided with amusement or enjoyment.
‘everyone just sits in front of the television for entertainment’ - The Oxford Dictionary

There you go. In an ideal world, entertainment is gratification of the soul. Now it is a constant stimulation of the senses. In a society filled with razzmatazz, rational discourse dies. And people are given the impression they have a say in all this by having them take part in useless polls- “Do you think Gayle’s record of 175 be broken in T20 Cricket?”, “Which is the best snapshot moment of the day?” etc.- and in a turn of wonderful marketing savvy, dedicating the first Ten editions of IPL to us, the audience (‘Das saal aapke naam’ which roughly translates into ‘We owe these ten years to you’ which is totally true and completely false.) This is one part of the story, where the people in control are doing their best to to keep us as passive consumers. And I know there is no underground sect behind it; it’s just neoliberal capitalism pushed to the extreme. What I don’t understand is the normal people’s fascination with this whole circus.

A flatmate religiously supports ‘his’ team in all their matches, gets really excited when they’re winning and turns morose when they lose. He tells me he’s from Bengaluru and so he wants his team to win. I ask him how is this your team. It is owned by a liquor baron who’s currently absconding from the country because of financial scandals, almost all the players in the team are freelance cricketers from across the world who have no fealty for the city and most importantly, how have you contributed in anyway and what prompts you to take so much pride in their success (To be fair, this is how all the mega sport franchises more or less operate). All I achieved after this round of questioning was being called a cynic and an asshole.

“If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right” - John Lydon

I wish that the sportsmen and the commentators (usually retired sportspeople) could be a little less manipulative. Vain hopes. The players are busy shooting advertisements and, as an extension, themselves via those trivial chit-chat sessions, and the commentators are complicit in selling even during play with their redundant, misinformed and overexcited narratives. They give you information you can’t do shit with. People argue that sporting avenues like these give the talented a chance to prove their worth and make money. I guess it also takes talent to run a drug cartel, so why are they banned? (And the analogy is made with intent. Television is a drug and just because it is practised en masse doesn’t make it right.) Is making money at any cost the primary motive of the people of any society? I understand that a lot of us live like this. Isn’t it then, more the reason, we want our celebrities to uphold better standards. No, I’m not asking all of them to be politically embroiled like Socrates against the Brazilian Military Regime or Ali against America’s Vietnam War. Maybe they can stop being complete sellouts by not endorsing everything from beer to face wash. Like it or not, our celebrities are our role models because they are the protagonists in our public discourse that does not give much space to writers, filmmakers and other public intellectuals. Should they not be at least a bit accountable for our attention?

You may ask why I have to bitch and moan instead of living under a rock. I would have done that until a few years ago. I can’t do that anymore because I’m beginning to believe it is imperative to stand and fight for the world you believe in instead of retreating to a cave. Not least because these buggers will not let you live in peace even there but also because we have to safeguard the best interests of the next generation. (Full Disclosure: I work for India’s largest e-commerce company. So to pay for my sins, I moonlight as a blogger propagating anti-consumerism and compulsively read Fight Club.) This idea of entertainment is so flawed primarily because it creates the wrong expectation for everyday living. Because we are so used to constant titillation, we are waiting for life to do the same to us and since that can’t happen, our lives feel all the more eventless pushing us to more passive consumption. (A fantastic article that talks about how the Web is increasingly turning into television- https://medium.com/matter/the-web-we-have-to-save-2eb1fe15a426)

“It did what all ads are supposed to do: create an anxiety relievable by purchase.” -David Foster Wallace

It could be argued that we don’t have to buy the stuff they advertise. Though some are strong enough to resist its temptations, it is not true for a lot of us. It’s not just the money though. Like Tim Wu points out, our attention is a more valuable resource that we are forced to spend in this freemium-eqsue model. We are becoming less imaginative and thus more susceptible to unexpected events because of our lifestyles. Imagination is what separates us humans from the rest. By creating a homogenous consumption model, we are filling everyone’s heads with the same images and narratives which lead to identity crises. We need to get out of this quicksand of comfort and listlessness. It is not easy but that’s what will make it so worthwhile.

What we have to reclaim now is not just our freedom but also our identity. We are the stories we tell, the questions we ask, the paths we take and the lessons we learn. And to do that, we have to think our own bloody thoughts.

We don't live in a Post-Truth World

I still have to write this month's column. The deadline was 20th. I don't know what I can write about because it has to be both honest and new. It's funny how little of the real 'you' is in you. Most of what we say and think is the fresh 20% layer at the top of your head based on your most recent experiences. Which is probably why, like they say, a writer is someone for whom writing is harder than it is for others because he's trying to go past the top layers that he picked off from others. To understand what it is really that makes you you, it is imperative that we break the illusion of self-knowledge and question each of our assumptions and opinions.

How do some people have so much willpower? Is it really something you can and should learn to live a good, fulfilling life? If God made us a certain way, should we try to be someone else based on the incomplete knowledge about their life? The fact that we're alive and there's something instead of nothing is so bizarre that it might take a lifetime for me to wrap my head around it.

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Objective Reality

Today morning I equipped myself with a screwdriver and spent twenty minutes dismantling my grandma’s faulty pedestal fan. I unscrewed the nuts and bolts, pried open small parts, messed around the circuit and eventually pulled out the motor. After trying for another thirty minutes trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work, I was surrounded by parts and screws, my hands greasy, not only unable to repair but also to reassemble the damn thing. For all my belief in my abilities and the fancy ways in which I could repair the fan in my head, the reality was that I had totally gutted it and had to carry the autopsied body to the electrician. The truth (the capital T variety) was staring me in the eye.

For the past few months we’ve been extensively told about how ‘post-truth’, which also happens to be Oxford dictionary’s Word of the Year, is the new reality. And it is partly true. We exceedingly live in a world that drowns us with contradictory information and opinion, analysis and fact. Not only is it impossible to discover the truth amidst all this noise but it’s getting harder to stay abreast of all the information we need to know. Both Mainstream and Social Media, which we’re helplessly connected to, are pushing so many agendas at us that we seem to have lost all grip on ‘reality’. And Big Data, with all its quantitative hullabaloo confuses us even more by manipulating with cold numbers.

“If you torture data enough, it will confess to anything” -Ronald Coase

The only way to combat this flood and reduce the insecure feeling is to totally disconnect. But we can’t possibly live like ignorant fools, can we? (But like the saying goes, isn’t half knowledge worse than ignorance?) This is the world we live in and we want to know what’s happening with it and try to make it a little better place. So it’s imperative we know so that we can act. Now, stop and reconsider that statement- We need information so that we can gain knowledge from it, take rational decisions and act on them. Are we doing that?

All the information we get from media paralyses us, prevents us from taking action by creating confusion, apathy or hopelessness. Or it turns us into consumers and encourages us to buy shit to alleviate our anxiety. Instead of providing information that can turn us into rational contributors and citizens, we are being pushed into smaller and smaller ghettos of unrelenting, censored filter bubbles where we are forced to consume Events and Trivia masquerading as News (I highly recommend Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death for a more critical, expansive thesis on the subject). It’s not always the system shoving crap down our throats. We choose to consume junk by obsessively following Facebook events, Twitterati faux-debates, commodify ourselves by incessantly posting on Instagram and Snapchat. No wonder we’re stressed out of our minds. We do not know how to function in this shape-shifting, fear-inducting, relentlessly loud world.

“The daily newspapers talk of everything except the daily. The papers annoy me , they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn’t concern me, doesn’t ask me questions and doesn’t answer the questions I ask or would like to ask.” -Georges Perec

I am going to share a few hacks I’ve been experimenting with to find some peace of mind. For one, I’ve started treating information like food. I like to try new sources once-in-a-while but otherwise, I have a few trustworthy news hubs which I approach for my daily quota. Even with that, I try to avoid reaction pieces- reader write-ins, concise digests, opinion pieces, reactions on social media etc. I have also stopped reading/ watching short, attention-grabbing, decontextualized news that entices me with the illusion of knowledge but instead leaves me with a couple of fancy words that I can only use later for name-dropping. If I’m interested in something, I’d be better off researching it in a more formal, critical, less reactionary manner.

Decentralization is going to be big and not just in Computing. We are currently at the apotheosis of Centralized information flow. In Politics, Business, Sport and Culture, the global/ national is dominating the local. So much so that BJP won a record-breaking majority in Uttar Pradesh without even announcing the Chief Ministerial candidate. That’s one example but look around and you’ll see monopolies of money, attention, discourse. Based on what I’ve been reading, I have a hunch this is going to change. Local bodies will start becoming more important and people will gravitate towards a culture where hegemonies will be dismantled. So I’ve decided to participate more in small local groups, learn and lead through action instead of dreaming about world-changing ideas. So next time I have to vote, I’ll read and hear what the local legislator has to say instead of voting for a central figurehead. I’m sure the more politically intelligent among you will can give excellent reasons why that approach is wrong and I’d love to listen, learn, think and adapt. Till then, I’m willing to argue on behalf of my decisions. Which brings me to another choice I’ve made- To learn to be politically incorrect.

Not everyone is correct in their ‘own way’. Not all kids have a ‘natural talent’, a ‘unique voice’. Not every opinion has to be accepted for being based on ‘prior experience’. This assumption of multiple truths is the primary reason for the wreckage of our public discourse. Agreeing to disagree means we should listen to all opinions, right or wrong. It does not mean all opinions are equally right.

“The body says what words cannot” -Martha Graham

I’m also learning to trust my body more, emphasising on the physicality of objects, the tactile sensation, the use of as many sensory organs as possible. Reality exists- Tell yourself mind has control over matter when you can’t do that one last push-up. Fucked up advertisements have conditioned us into believing we can will ourselves into doing anything and becoming anyone we want (of course, if we buy their product). Not only we cannot but it’s also insulting to those people who achieve grand things.

We are all trying to be better people and the walk on that path is a very conscious process. Sure there are bad days when all seems pointless or days when some of your actions could totally mess up. I’m not denying that but I think we need to emphasise more on the action than the thought. Action without thought is stupid or dangerous. Thought without action is worse. With nothing to apply to and learn from, by being divorced from reality, by being trapped in the familiar confines of the head, we are going nowhere. It is like being drugged where everything is beautiful and nothing is real. It’s a bizarre, asphyxiating feeling. Objective reality exists and we need to accept it. If you still are unconvinced, go and break the windshield of your neighbour’s car. Good luck.

The hitchicker's guide to authenticity

I got promoted. It was nice seeing her on Saturday, if only for a few minutes. Boxing is still great but I ain't getting much better. The 5 Ether I bought about a month ago for $64 are now trading at $204 (though I know no ways to sell them). I had a great time reading Asamarthuni Jeevayatra and am currently loving every moment spent with Amaravathi Kathalu. I might go on a bike trip this weekend.

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The madmen anti-manifesto

“Nobody wants to be great, they all want to be rich.” -Pritish Nandy

In his insightful essay about hipsters, and as an extension millennials, William Deresiewicz calls us Generation Sell. And that was the term I’d been searching for when I was trying to explain my angst to people about why we, the millennials, suck.

We don’t have an ideology. No wonder our lives are so unfulfilling. Yes, there are people who are doing work they believe in but two things irk me: 1. Scale- We have made peace with the fact that our contributions, at best, will be infinitesimal. 2. Tone- None of us are angry. Neither the righteous nor of the other kind. At best, we’re irritated.

I’m not saying all rebellion is good but rebellion is a very important part of every society. That mantle has, through the generations, been carried by the youth culture. It is in the very nature of a young person to first question every command, any handed-down thought. The young of every country were responsible for independence, for civil rights fights, for abolition of inhuman systems, for fighting against fascism. This manifested through the books they wrote, the songs they sang, the films they made, the organizations they led. Part of it has been systematically eradicated using technology Soma, the other half by Post-Modernism.

The mainstream culture has taken over the counter-culture. Look at how Apple, the world’s richest and one of the most iconic companies, sells itself. They call themselves the misfits, the artists, the nirvana-seekers. Steve Jobs wanted to transform the world. His company now sells plastic toys to adolescent-adults. Apple once told us they’d help us avoid 1984; They unwittingly created the Brave New World ( For more insight into that analogy, please read Neil Postman’s prescient Amusing Ourselves to Death ).

The inmates were supposed to take over the asylum. Now the guards have infiltrated us so deeply that everyone’s turned into a guard. Keeping others in check, reporting to authorities, castigating and worse, punishing those who don’t fall into line. When a person so willingly upholds the rules, without ever questioning authority or without ever voicing an original opinion, why would anyone need guards.

My generation’s cultural icon is not Buddha or Einstein, Lennon or Camus, Gandhi or Ali. It is not even Jackson Pollock or Cobain, Brando or Hunter Thompson. It is Don Draper. ( What’s worse is that we don’t even care for an icon anymore. We are human brands perpetually polishing our images, addictively selling ourselves on Social Media ). We are obsessed with buying and, to sustain it, selling stuff. No seller asks if he’d buy what he’s selling and no buyer questions his own motives for buying. We all turn into Pavlov’s dogs at the sight of a sale.

Every person is born a slave to existing dogmas and assumptions, methods and superstitions, worldviews and rules. Instead of teaching us why the world runs the way it does, and if that’s the only way it should, schools teach about how to be good players to leverage maximum output ( There are thousands of intelligent, well-intentioned bloggers out there who have been writing about how our education system is a relic of the Industrial Age and needs to be completely revamped ). And mainstream culture wants nothing more than turning us into passive consumers, stupid automatons with no facilities for reason or rebellion.

Good is about playing by the rules perfectly, understanding how the system works, improving your capabilities to rise to the top. But great is about questioning the foundations of the system, about pulling it off its roots to plant something you truly believe in, about not following a religion but creating one annihilating the need for one.

This was not supposed to be a narrative. If anything, this was supposed to be a tirade against everyone who gave us these little boxes and asked us to make sure our narratives do not spill over the edges. This is a voice against the brand-building of human personality. This is a fight against being a statistic on someone’s quarterly report. This is against all those people who wear superhero t-shirts and tap on their smartphones while riding office elevators to work for organizations which call themselves cool while destroying the planet and its people in their greed for money.

We need rebels, freethinkers, madmen. One of whom will write an anti-manifesto which none of the others will follow. And that would be incredible.

fight we must

Why do we write, make films, compose music, paint? No, I'm talking neither about the hobbyists nor the professionals. I'm talking about the believers. Those 'artists' whose mandate exceeds the aesthetic rewards and drives for cultural/ political change. As I write this, I'm having a conversation with two strong, independent, successful, intelligent, highly qualified women who're talking about harassment at workplace. What they have to face everyday just for being of the wrong gender and how, despite complaining, nobody gets punished. Nobody even gets socially castigated. I guess it's a cultural thing. Do you folks believe in standards of culture or are you of the sort which says what sells is what people want?

I'm reading Amusing Ourselves to Death and I can't recommend it enough. But let's come back to the Why of all expression? The post-modernist's greatest trick was to cast a shadow on the nature of reality itself. When you can't even trust your own mind, what's the credibility in standing up for anything? Ofcourse I'm a cynic but I like my statements backed by better writers. In the Dust of the Planet is next on my reading list.

But fight we must. For a world we want to live in, for a world we are proud of, for a world that is a reflection of the best of our thoughts. Now, don't go about asking me how there's a hierarchy of thoughts. There is and you know it. I'm not intellectually equipped enough to communicate it in words, yet. So why should we add our voice to the cacophony out there? Because humans are practitioners. We can validate our opinions and beliefs only by putting it out at world's scrutiny. Like it or not, we're constantly fighting; Wouldn't it be better if we consciously chose our battles?

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And oh! I stumbled across the term Insight Porn sometime last month. I guess that's what I was talking about in my last two columns (it's actually one post that was published in parts).

Addicted to epiphanies

“If you can talk brilliantly about a problem, it can create the comforting illusion that it has been mastered” -Stanley Kubrick

God we love to daydream. I know it because that’s what I spend most of my day doing. We spend entire days in melancholic nostalgia even before we have accumulated enough experience to reminiscence over.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” -Marcel Proust

What we are nostalgic about is not a certain spacetime but our innocence. Linear time corrupts- even valuable experience brings knowledge which in turn is still moving us away from comfortable, ignorant idyll. And we are not content at feeling nostalgia. We project it into the future in the form of daydreams. We dream of days when we can spend days being happy pursuing things we are passionate about which in itself is an attempt to recreate childhood. But there are two problems with this thought- 1. Childhood is so special, atleast for most of us, because of how unselfconscious we were. Even if we could recreate the external factors, what can we do to about the corruption of thought and soul? (Consumerism is a side-effect of this attempt to recreate childlike wonder. The ads tell us we can be happy and free if we bought their shit. We buy them.) 2. In our attempts to create the future from the material gained in the past, we ignore the possibility of new events which can totally derail our assumptions about ourselves and our fantasies and take us to totally new places. This means the future is never going to be a better present and we have to keep recalibrating because of the, if I may, grey swan events. Escapism can be therapeutic but not if you’re going to ignore living for it. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched, then, to say day-dreaming is akin to being drugged. The longer you’re at it, the more you need it and the less you’ll enjoy it.

(Disclaimer: I’d like to point out here that when I say we, I don’t mean the entire readership but other similar folks who are tuned into the same radio station as I am.)

We are constantly building narratives, writing our eulogies, tweaking with them constantly. This is akin to mentally typing the review of a book while reading it. It not only does great disservice to the new experiences we can gain from it but also confuses and irritates us for not sticking to the pattern of our notions.

If my piecemeal knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita is anything to go by, all we have is our Karma, literally action. The assumption on which all the world’s spirituality runs on is that while we may not be able to control or for that matter, find the source of our thoughts, we can well choose to decide which ones we choose to act on.

“I may do as I will but can I will as I will?”

Till a short time ago, I used to argue that we are not really responsible for our actions because aren’t we all just obeying the instructions coming from some dark corner of our minds? But with more real-life experiences, conversations and readings, I am inclined to believe that the conscious mind has atleast some say in what the subconscious tells the body to do. It might still be chained to that nucleus but there’s a possibility to expend energy to jump a few orbits. Now that energy, they say, comes from deciding to do the right thing day in and day out- the Dharma way. Every decision, and we make thousands if not more everyday, is an option for us to set ourselves on the right path. That comes from the sages, the rishis, the seekers, the philosophers and the poets. Again, I used to argue vehemently with this idea of received wisdom but I’m beginning to realize subscribing only to my experiences for life choices is seriously driving me towards solipsism and judgmentalism because I’m holding my experiences as the benchmark without conceding to the fact that others can have totally genuine stories of their own which prompt them to act the way they do.

If all of us are cruelly chained to causality, can we ever transcend it? Isn’t all advice then just misplaced. This was my line of defence. But now I’m willing to believe it can be transcended because though that is an uphill task, it is better than the abyss of indifference and meaninglessness that is waiting to swallow me. (I get repeatedly told my my mother and girlfriend that I should write about something new, that I’m perpetually wallowing about in my preoccupations that are so narrow. I have no defence for my lack of imagination but we must recognise that all roads lead home. We don’t write about what we want to, we write what we ought to.)

We only have the present. Daydreaming is great, I’m a huge exponent of its wonderful dopamine-inducing effects. But I also know firsthand how druggy its effects are. By escaping into imagination, we’re going ourselves a great disservice.

I’m a bad software engineer and I’m beginning to realize that is so because I find ideation more fulfilling than implementation. That makes me incompetent at most things. Thought and action, if not leading to and learning from each other, trap us, limit us, isolate us, leave us stranded in a limbo. Implementation is messy, takes effort, invites criticism but it also does two important things: 1. It opens us up to other ideas and views thereby expanding the self and 2. Focusing the entirety of our being on the action annihilates the self and we fuse with the object of our focus and craft. It is what, as I’ve understood, Buddha called Nirvana. By subsuming into the activity, you transcend the narrow confines of your personality. Not that one can’t do this with thoughts but for normal people like me, thoughts are too ephemeral and slippery to hold onto and work with. I need the heft of a physical action to keep me tethered. Mind needs matter, to challenge it, to feed into it, to grow, to move onto newer landscapes. Stop obsessing about your eulogies- they will be written if we end up doing something worthwhile.

“What other people think of you is none of your business”

Karma will free us, I hope. All thought unfocused is just escapism, Maya, at best intellectual masturbation. It is no different from collapsing into the couch, eating junk food while surfing through channels hoping for something to salvage you. It is a phantom existence. To be alive is to jump headlong into the sea of reality.

Can we choose to move towards who we want to be and not just keep drifting along? Why and how do we decide who we want to be? I don't know. For now, all I can see is that I can choose to interact openly with matter at my disposal or choose to loathe and begrudge it from the prison of my mind. Shouldn't a human be like a sponge to all experiences? All judgements come from prior experience. Opening up to new experiences will only create new alleyways of thought. An ideology is an hardened judgement and any ideology that does not learn from feedback is going to wither and die. If you were kind enough to indulge in my political theory knowledge, I propose an analogy- Communism is top-drown, thought-driven, it is the mind trying to impose prior learnt knowledge on the present reality. Capitalism is bottom-up, instinct-driven, it is the greed of the body trying to find the path of least resistance for present fulfillment. And like always, the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle- between discipline and surrender, between thought and action, between the abstract and the tactile.

How to live- Isn't it the oldest question of them all? It is also the most immediate of our concerns.

year of living consciously

December has been an eventful month. Definitely feels longer than the others. I went to Goa, I finally wrote Only drowning men (and sent it to Vinoothna Geetha) mostly because of Sandeep's exhortations, I wrote exams and (sort of) attended interviews, I had an amazing (and hopefully eye-opening) conversation with Praveena and Ty. But most things are the same- I still frequently bunk Cult, I still sit in office half-heartedly, I abandon more books than I read, I haven't made much progress with Infinite Jest (and whatever I write is still enormously influenced by DFW's style), I'm still judgmental albeit more consciously now, and I'm still burdened by the massive weight of my oh-so-intellect. Still there, still stuck between confusion and indifference, between arrogance and impotence.

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All philosophy comes from siesta

I’ve never thrown a punch in my life. Not until yesterday and even then only at a punchbag. And while I kept punching, I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot. Not because punching at the bag was funny but because it was incredibly liberating. Unbelievably, at 26, I’ve never hit someone or been hit. Being shoved away is my highest accomplishment. There are three reasons for it: 1. I’m fairly cowardly and will do anything to avoid confrontation (This could be because I don’t believe in things too deeply to burn with passion about them. More of a head guy than a heart guy if you are the type who understands those distinctions.) 2. I was brought up by a slightly over-protective single mother and I didn’t have enough male ego and pumping testosterone in the house to inspire and give me a route to follow. I still don’t know how to be macho. 3. Most importantly, as I entered adulthood, my assessment of myself and of my environment stereotyped me as a well-meaning, artistically inclined, sissy-ish nerd. It probably wasn’t accurate but it defined me fairly well and I was happy to play along. Now that image created a problem.

It made me want to conform to it. Forget breaking it, I was desperate to fit into it. Since the people in my world expected something of me, I did everything I could to live up to the image. Forget pretence, this was the mould I wanted to fit myself into. I couldn’t afford to ruin my reputation, ruin their expectations, afford to find new things about myself that wouldn’t toe the line with the old. It wasn’t a conscious choice but a subconscious mode of life I’d subscribed to. Comfort was more important than casualty, better safe than sorry, desperately guard my small island of neuroses than jump into the sea and be surprised by waves, maybe even drown. (Come to think of it, all of us are going to drown anyway so how does it matter if you die in your dank corner of the world or die riding the waves with the sun warming your face. Quasi Romanticism will lead us to our ruin one day.) So I set out to be different but within the limits of my defined personality, tried new things but nothing too radical lest I disturb the status quo, and tried to find my calling but made sure it isn’t too far away from where I thought I’d find it because then people will have to go through the extra effort of restructuring my image in their heads.

With all due respect, most of us are like this. We don’t probably give much thought to it as we go through the hurried repetitions of everyday actions, but which one of you hasn’t woken at dusk on a lazy afternoon and wondered why you are the way you are and how the hell you ended up here. Haven’t you ever thought what your 13-year old self would say about your present-self? We are obsessed with giving narratives to our lives. Inside our head, there’s a bloody film director sitting who’s constantly trying to fit our present actions and thoughts into the larger patterns and leitmotifs. How many of our current decisions are not based on ensuring the continuation of our previous selves? We are a byproduct of our genetic makeup and environmental factors, and nothing you ever do can alter it, but then why do we act like self-created, autonomous creatures whose plans and desires are objective and ideal for the fulfillment of our future selves. Isn’t addressing the existence of a bias the first step for moving away from it (or is the identification of a particular bias also the result of our other biases?)

I recently read a great article which convinced me into believing that we’re not who we think we are. The author argued that our images of the self are elaborate constructs based on the feedback we receive from the external world for our actions. People say we ought to learn from others’ mistakes; I believe we learn too much already and the wrong way. We can’t see the causes for people’s failures and so we pivot results around effects. In a repugnantly anti-poetic line, our journey is our own and the only parameters we need to hold ourselves against are ours. DFW once wrote that we’d worry less about what people thought about us if we realized how seldom they do. Everybody’s busy minding their own business, figuring out their own mess, making narratives of their own lives to really give much of a thought to you. Think about it, do you worry a lot about others? To summarize, and here I sound like a high school student writing his essay on some perplexing Biology topic, don’t worry too much about your self-image. You came before it did and it’ll go before you do. Living isn’t a noun that you have to subscribe to, your life is not a list of adjectives that others use to define you. If anything, to overstretch this grammatical analogy, life is a verb whose essence is in choosing the action over the image, movement over stasis, experiment over ill-fitting orthodoxy. And keeping up with our practice of eventually resorting to Zen proverbs, the journey over the destination. We’re all going to die and be forgotten one day.The least of our worries should be to wonder what petty, boring, impermanent people are going to have fleeting half-thoughts about us. Remember, even when we’re talking about someone else, we’re essentially talking about ourselves. And the same holds true for everyone else. Nobody gives a shit. Break the damn mould. Jump into the wilderness. Listen to your heart. Fear your complacence. Choose your own bloody path. Nobody but you is making your biopic.

Post-Script- I hate taking advice. The practical ones are fine (ex: what route to choose to evade the Traffic Policeman, how to retrieve the data in a corrupt hard disk etc.) but the philosophical/ lifehack advices are so full of bullshit. At best they’re entertaining and at worst are capable of taking you down the wrong road for a while. Either way, we don’t listen to anyone’s advice; We’re too full of hubris to believe that someone else is better equipped than us to make our lives better. So I don’t really have to warn you against taking this post seriously. You won’t.

wondering what we're doing here

Today I asked Dheeraj if he considered himself a serious writer. He asked me what I meant. Somebody who takes his writing seriously in the larger context of literature, I replied. Then I asked myself the same question- Do I consider myself a serious writer. The answer came out- a resounding No. Ofcourse I crave the admiration and reputation but I'm too much of a post-modernist to hold categorical differentiations and a self-doubting skeptic to see myself in such elated company. No, I'm better off being a lowly blogger; the freedom is too succulent.

Anyway, I just shot off December's column yesterday. Again, more of the same. For all my talk of escaping external boundaries, like Sravani says, I seem incapable of seeing beyond the walls of my perpetual fixations. Too fuckin' bad. Read Nostalgia, Lahore, and the Ghost of Aurganzeb- the argument is heartfelt, the language is luscious. I'm stuck around page 150 of Infinite Jest. It takes a few pages in every sitting to get used to DFW's rhythms and idiosyncrasies but the investment is totally worth it. He's a writer of prodigious gifts and yes, I've quit dreaming I'd be like him someday. He's just to bloody good. Also reading Gollapudi's Saayamkaalamaindi. Surprisingly gripping. What else. Copied True Detective and Modern Family. Haven't started watching because a part of me deeply believes TV is lowbrow, too popular, too easy, too damn entertaining. Oh! I'm such an elitist douchebag. (I'm disgusted by my ability to rather not watch anything than enjoy an entertaining film. Guilt way outweighs Pleasure.)


After this month's column was published, I received a mail from a Mr. Nagaraja Setty (publishing the contents below) reading which I felt a rare pride. I was mildly surprised that someone actually reads some of the stuff I write but his letter touched a deep nerve.


Hello Sirish,


I am Nagaraja setty going on 82 years and lived in this great America since 24 years old. I enjoyed reading your article. Every word in it is "truth". That is why we say Truth is God, Truth is beautiful etc. You write very well. If you do not mind please e-mail me a copy. I want to share it with my some "wordly friends".


Thanks. Regards

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In the waiting hall

Why do we do what we do? Why do we wake up in the morning, get ready in a hurry, rush to work, spend hours doing mundane work that will only ensure we will have work to do in the future, try and please the right people to step up on an imaginary ladder, drive back during rush hour, curse the lines in the supermarket, gobble down food while watching news on TV, try to understand our teenage kids, wish we were more patient with our parents, look at our spouses with disappointment and go to sleep castigating ourselves for not spending our days better.

We did not choose to be here and we do not know how to be anyone else. We are surrounded by disappointment, frustration, helplessness, cowardice. Sure there is happiness- We cherish small achievements, take pride in the success of our kids, celebrate important events in friends’ lives, give to society what little we can and spend time on weekends pursuing hobbies. But I’m surprised with how little there is to life. Even if a few lucky souls transcend beyond this transactional, wrought form of living, it’s still eating and excreting, buying and wanting, working and procreating, playing and dreaming, talking and dying. Life would have been absurdly funny if it wasn’t so comically grotesque. Considering the fact that we know we’re mortal, I’m appalled by how we choose our priorities. We are obsessed with accumulation and consumption: of information and food and things, of power and money, of pets and goodwill. Traditional knowledge has repeatedly been trying to point us to the more important stuff but we consider it to be too banal. And that is a sad paradox because the reason for its banality is its prowess at being proven right over and over again.

I recently came across a philosophical position that actively discourages people from having children. The proponents argue that by giving birth to a child, you are condemning him to a lifetime of suffering. Assuming we are free-willed, rational, conscious beings and not micro-orgasmic colonies whose only function is the sustenance of those microbes, that argument makes a valid point. When people themselves have no idea what they’re doing on this planet, what it means to be alive and human, what our purpose and destiny are, do we have a right to give birth to another being who will have to pay a, literally, life sentence. Most people do what they do because everyone else seems to be doing it. For all our aspirations of intelligence and transcendence, we’re eerily similar to single-celled organisms whose only motive is safety until further procreation. It’s a pretty disgusting way to live actually when you think about it.

It is the mundanity of stupidity. I’m an admirer of the human ability to attain genius, glory, godhood. I am mesmerised by the flame of intellect even though it’s short-lived. Einstein and Ramanujan, Joyce and Mozart are not here to bask in people’s admiration. For all we know, they didn’t crave for it. But even they, not just us, were being driven by the lunatic inside their heads. The fact that they chose to follow the his directions even when the world around them was trying to crush their individuality is a mark of the strength of their character. Or maybe it was just that the madman was more insistent than he’s for the rest of us. Either way, we’re all going to die. God or No God, it does not matter. It’s tragic that all our lives are essentially ‘timepass’ until death arrives to guide us to places beyond our comprehension. The only upside being that it’s going to come soon.

Monthly Column- Part 4

It's only been like 4 iterations till now and it already feels like I've been writing this column for a long bloody time. I hate deadlines but a part of me can't deny that there's no better inspiration than last minute panic. If we weren't forced to bring things to a closure, we'd be making making more and more meaningless changes under the guise of perfection when it really is fear about not being approved. (I think we do all that we do because we want to be approved. Be unique in just the right proportions. ) I'm not a big fan of perfection, unsurprisingly, because it demands focus, commitment and discipline-- Comedy.. for me to be even dropping those words. Anyway, I'm here because this month's deadline is on me and I'm trying to procrastinate until the last moments to wake the fucking inspiration from it's deep slumber. Writing becomes so much easier the more frequently you do it but then again it's not probably always a good thing. I'm such a lousy architect of sentences, though come to think of it, shouldn't I go resculpt them instead of berating myself in more ugly lines.

I love being a pessimist, a wannabe-nihilist. In a world devoid of meaning, all attempts to progress are absurdly comic. Seriously, you can hardly disappoint a pessimist. Whatever good happens to him feels like a premonition for the fall but since he's expecting that anyway, he's jolly happy about being prepared. Try stopping to fight for a moment with life and just give in. It makes everything so much easier. But will that lead you to a worthwhile (again, someone else's standards of what you should be doing with your time here) life is another question. I was reading JM Coetzee's Lives of Animals yesterday (Master. Each one of his sentences emanates the heat of the anvil where they were wrought. Here is a man who is so accomplished in thought that even his most offhand lines have the power to rip you apart.) and (I seem to be using too many brackets for asides. Should I go the DFW way and opt for footnotes. Too bad I can't write half as well as him. His writing's a marvel. It's less what he's seeing and saying than how he wishes world was. ) (Actually, in a way, his footnotes ushered 'literary' fiction into the age of the internet. I used to worry about using ellipses because I thought it was the characteristic of a blogpost but the cliches are right again and it's not a gimmick if you aren't using it as one. You never know, someone might soon publish a 'serious' book with smileys.) I forgot what I wanted to say amidst all these asides. Where was I? Yes, Lives of Animals but I can't remember what I wanted to say. Fuck this gimmicks man. This apparent transposition of stream-of-consciousness is obviously false. And yet, I can't resist it because this seems like a good package to transport the nature of my thoughts. Weird isn't it: to embrace the truth, you have to walk down the path of falsehood. (I could be a really fucked person's 1st grade Zen Teacher.) All communication is spurious. However, all action that conveys it can only be the truth.

-Are you a nihilist?
-Not as much as I should be.


BEYOND INTELLECTUALIZATION

"How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it's just words" -DFW

Do you write or does the writing happen to you?

As I was waiting for the elusive inspiration, which wouldn't knock despite the encroaching deadline, Amma kept giving me topics I should write about- Old films, the incessant rains, about depressingly hilarious ads; anything light-hearted and fun unlike the my usual brooding, faux-intellectual pieces. I kept turning them down. I didn't want to write about something frivolous, something forgettable, something.. enjoyable. I wanted to come off as a suffering artist, as someone valiantly carrying the immense load of his intellectual gifts, someone who saw the world less as a visceral, grimy entity and more as an opportunity for analyses in abstract forms. Anyway, here I was getting carried away with my imaginary genius while unable to type a damn word when Amma reminded me of Lalitha garu. She said that I ought to thank her everyday for she ignited the spark, so to speak- nurtured the sapling, encouraged whatever little gifts I had, nudged me into the right direction. Too bad because I can't remember much of it.

Sure I see the fragments- her ferociously red henna-stained hair, her girth, their stunningly urban upper middle-class house, the day I sat in the backseat of their Premier Padmini while we drove somewhere, an old lady (her mother I think), the casual elitism I enjoyed among the other tuition students. I'd like to believe I remember her touch but all I can hear is the becalming tinkling of her gold bangles while she hugged me. It feels nice remembering these things now. I haven't seen her since the day we came back from Delhi. I don't remember saying goodbye to her; for that matter I don't remember seeing her for the first time. She's an ethereal presence. Somehow concrete too. I know it happened to me. I think I can remember her smell now. Maybe I should thank her for these memories. They're nice. They make me feel more alive, give my life a certain heft. 

There is nothing more amazing than gazing back at life with nostalgia. The past is glorious, I wish it was the present. Which one of you hasn't craved for school, for a childhood that wasn't, for a more innocent world. I remember school, the laughter, the favourite teachers, the lazy afternoons gazing out of the window, the simple pleasures, the nervous excitement of overhearing adult conversations, the dreams of "growing up". But there was probably more to it. I'm sure it wasn't just warm sunlight, dream defining English classes and the breathlessness of first romance. There was frustration, fear and Physics classes. There were teachers who you hated and others who hated you. I remember being taught Mulk Raj Anand in the classroom in the cellar, the melancholy that world instigated in me. I remember trying to impress Jayasree madam in her demo class because I was desperate to be a part of the worlds she was creating with her words and because I knew she was a human who'd understand the inarticulatable agony I was going through as a confused, dreamy child. I remember that day so vividly that as I write this, I have butterflies in my stomach. I remember the long, slow bicycle rides back from school. I remember the nights sitting on the stairs waiting for Amma to come back from office.

All of us are always trying to get away. Nobody likes the present, nobody knows the future. All we have is an imaginary past- made of collages of films and photos and myths and songs on cassette tapes. A past filled with interesting people, deep, long conversations, purity and joy and innocence, of freedom and play. A world filled only with first-hand experience. A world so real it can only be imaginary. I don't want to intellectualize; I'm beginning to believe it'll drive us to madness one day. But so will all this day dreaming. We are crazy. We are desperate. We are petty. We are kind. We are all daydreamers. We crave pain so deep that it'll relieve us of our pettiness, of our irritating squabbles. We want real, unadulterated experiences. We want life to drag us by the collar, punch us in the stomach, kiss us deeply, whisper in our ear. And yet we're too afraid of letting go of our older experiences, of our learnings and expectations, of our fancy jargon and fragile ivory towers. We're incongruous, we're absurd, we're doomed. We're human.

..and this month's column

This month's column is one of those increasingly rare inspired posts. I used to think it's very possible to separate your day job from the passion that you want to follow. Apparently no, since you're the same person at the end of the day and all those disappointments, frustrations and anxieties are going to find a way into your (my) writing. Yes, at this point in time, I want those "real-life" experiences. I'm far too cut out from the rest of the world already, or like Sravani puts it, spend too much time in my own head. So being forcefully evicted out of that haven is a good thing. For one, it introduces me to some assholes. People you wouldn't ever want to deal with unless your job forced you to. Incidentally, Sravani and I were having a discussion a few days ago about what it means for something to come naturally to us. And I went to great pains to elaborate how we should listen to our conscience and only do things that come naturally to us. While she argued vehemently against it, repeatedly stressing on the importance of attention and work, dedication and craft on all relationships (which come to think of it, any activity is really), it took a couple of days for the realization to hit me.

Driving a car is natural to me now because I spent days anxious at the steering wheel and had to pay a lot of conscious thought and effort to (l)earn it. The same's with writing. I enjoy it because I'm good at it and so I spend more time with it, which makes me better and creates this nice feedback loop. But I also see now, how easy it is to fall into the comfort zone and convince yourself that you mustn't leave it because this is what you were born to do. And that can be a death knell because the moment you become insulated from the real, messy, frequently unbearable world is the moment the art and passion will stagnate. The freeze will creep from within for the lack of a force to fight against. True, like the great George Carlin argues, it's important not to give a shit but it's more important to know what you're not giving a shit about. The human condition is always a fight against something- mortality, absurdity, insecurity, impatience, confusion, humiliation, impermanence and many other things. I fear the real world because I'm afraid it'll breach my expectations, surprise me, shock me which is an unpleasant experience. To give you an analogy, it's like building a software product and telling people they ought to change their habits because the system is foolproof in it's abilities. True, it is bug-free but it also can turn obsolete very fast. Anybody, anything, that doesn't accept the feedback it receives, most of it, admittedly, unintentional, misplaced and cruel but valuable nevertheless, will not survive (read interesting) for a long time.

We love listening to the stories of artists and other celebrities and wonder how they could've had so many interesting, rich experiences. True, a part of it comes from their ability and expertise in packaging well but all that wouldn't have been possible without them being open to experience in the first place. I understand the importance of this intellectually but to go out everyday and face the wrath of stupidity, arrogance and disrespect is a journey in itself; it's something I would never undertake if not forced to. Hemingway once said that experience is the ink that fuels his stories (actually I heard Imtiaz Ali say it), and there can be no true experience without conflict. No real change without internal strife. The world will not run according to my expectations and the sooner I fathom it, the easier it'll be for me. Life doesn't owe me anything; I should stop feeling so entitled.

I'm not a big fan of the real world. Yes, there are stunning examples of intelligence and grace, wit and charm, genius and perseverance. Except I see them few and far between. And all those worthwhile things were created as an opposition to all things banal and brutal about the world. They say comedy is born out of tragedy. Ofcourse, it is. The construction of a good joke, conscious or subconscious, requires a lot of insight into human behaviour which can only be gained from bone deep experience. And things are driven bone deep by struggle: A struggle to comprehend your inadequacies, your insecurities, others' actions and in your quest to create a more elaborate mental map of the way the world works. Which again, inevitably, will have to be tweaked. At worst, this is a power game between you and life, fighting until death, seeing who's going to come out on top. At best, it can be a Salsa, a Jugalbandi, a game, a collaboration to find a way to appreciate and adjust from each others' differences, a process to fuse into a unique entity. I know where I should be heading but it'll require courage, sacrifice, humour and conscious living. That should be fun.

Also, I should stop using so many bloody conjunctions but (duh!) I'm unable to find any alternatives. Any ideas?

--

In Search of the Sacred

We’re living in a world where the old structures are falling and the new ones are yet to come up. Every day brings with it new possibilities, opportunities, horrors and disappointments. And it’s very easy to be lost in this torrent. Too much seems to be happening too fast. Advertisers are blaring from all sides, all your friends on Social Media are living amazing lives, so many people across the world are making new discovering and gaining insights, while fascists and psychopaths are placed better than ever to do most damage.

In times like these, it is very easy to give in to hedonism or despair. In any case, those seem to be the only two states I seem to be functioning in. I alternate between living in the fear of missing out or am too enamoured by the new contrivance that captures my inexpensive attention. Sociologically speaking, there’s apparently never been a better time period to live in. Psychologically speaking, mine own atleast, I’m not so sure. A part of my everyday goes into reading lifehack blog posts that try to explain how I can lead a better(?) life. You know, stuff life:

• Find your true calling 
• 7 tips to increase your productivity by 400% 
• Keep a Journal- it’s the best self-awareness tool 
• 13 things mentally strong people don’t do 

Don’t tell me you haven’t read any of them. There must be a reason my news feed’s filled with them. I also read too much pop-philosophy, spend hours reading habits and quirks of celebrities, and there’s always a tab open on my browser with life quotes from Feynman and Nietzsche. Every book I pick, I hope will change my life, will turn the damn bulb on. Every person I meet, I hope will be my Zen Guru. And obviously that doesn’t happen. In a universe where everything is infused with so much meaning, everything is meaningless. So when this feeling finally hits me in the evening, I just give up and watch standup comedy until I drift into a disturbed sleep.

This is where this post should end. This is where my previous nihilistic self would have ended it. Life sucks. Thank you. Period. I’d have said success is not a causality but a coincidence. Happiness, just bloody endorphins. But I’ve now turned into a more prosaic man. Unromantic, less vocal, definitely not as passionate, more corrupt even. However, I’ve gained something in return- I’m more willing to listen, open to learn, less desperate to show-off, confident enough not to constantly seek approval. Though the journey continues, there’s one learning I want to retain.
It’s this- Every person should have something in life that he’s deeply connected to, their personal haven. Something sacred. That when the world turns it’s back on you, which it eventually will, you can still go to your sanctum and stay there. Humans are solitary beings and I believe it’s life’s purpose to drive that fact deep into us, to feel it in our bones.

Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you -Rumi

What is this space, you may ask? It could be your prayers to your Gods every morning, it could be one hour of Piano practice, it could be running or meditation or writing a Journal filled with your thoughts, ideas and reflections, it could even be that time perfecting the cartwheel. It doesn’t matter what the activity is as long as it’s a world of its own. A place where you can shed all your personas and go in search of your true self. If the scriptures and sermons are right, there’s no true self. Then that must be the place where you just destroy all masks, erase all boundaries and become one with the cosmos.

All enlightenment starts from wistful thinking. I don’t know if this is the “ideal” way to live, provided there’s even such a way. My intellect tells me this seems like the right direction; my intuition seems to find resonance with it. I could be wrong, this could be another false revelation. But the best I can do at this point is to listen to my heart. In its longing to transcend me and return to the oneness, I hope my soul is leading me on the right path. There’s always a possibility that this is a faux-epiphany, maybe all epiphanies are wrong. Maybe enlightenment will teach me there’s no enlightenment. Till then though, I’ll have to learn motorcycle maintenance and inquire into values.

जलने में क्या मज़ा है, परवाने जानते हैं -Gulzar

Monthly Column- Part 2

This month's column. It's more or less a reworking of my seasoned tropes. Like DB puts it in this amazing video, "Auteur directors like you and me are making the same film again and again". That analogy fits perfectly to this blog. I handed the column late again. Hopefully will send it much earlier this month. Have an old idea I want to write about. Not sure if it'll be any good though.

Watch the video.

--

Temptation of the abyss

I have a fairly pessimistic outlook towards life. I’m not very comfortable when good things start happening to me. No, it’s not a question of not “deserving” it. I don’t believe that we live in a fair world or that there’s cosmic justice. I don’t like it because when something good happens, it can be followed by something bad. Not that there’s any reason for me to believe it would but even when I’m very happy about something that’s happening, a part of me is going, “Dude, don’t get overexcited. Something terrible is just around the corner.”

I’d rather not have something than lose it. Yes, admittedly, it’s not the most appealing way to live but I get by. I don’t know if I ‘ve been hardwired that way or been shaped by life incidents but that’s how it is. Life is divided into these alternate phases. So for a period of time, you find help from the dark corners, inspiration strikes you at the right time, small helps come back as huge favours, your loved ones are more accepting of your faults. It feels like the universe conspires into making you happy. But the flipside is that you cede control. Since your fate is not directly dependent on your actions anymore and you’re at the mercy of the Gods, it can be unnerving to think what if the pilot crash lands. The difference between a normal person and a pessimist is that even in moments of pure bliss, a small voice in the pessimist’s head keeps reminding him of the crash landing.

The pessimist, however, starts enjoying life more when things are going awry. Stereotypical examples- the boss screams at you in the meeting, somebody rams into your rightfully parked car, you realize you’ve forgotten your hall ticket for the most important exam of your life, when your friends and family lose their trust in you. Now, the fac tors influencing all these bad ,things might be beyond your control, but again, you have the power to react however the way you want. You don’t have to be thankful to the Gods, nor be insecure about losing it all away. You’ve already started losing more than you ever thought you would. Reason and responsibility are replaced by self-pitying and self-loathing.

People tell me I ought not preempt failures. That I should be living in the now. But when I start doing the same, I’m accused of irresponsibility and frivolousness. But then isn’t the best way to plan is to hope for the worst and then take it from there? Which brings me to learning by experience. I believe all real learning is tangential. It is almost accidental. Everything that helps us navigate through life with astonishing alacrity (trust me we’re so good at doing everything that we do that we don’t appreciate its complexity) is something we picked up while vying for something else. The pull towards the trophy teaches us everything that’s needed to win it. It’s so deeply imbibed that we don’t appreciate the journey that led us there.

If all the experiences in life can be plotted onto a graph, it’d be like a Sine Wave; The crests representing the successful happy times and the troughs denoting the sad times and miserable phases. We learn only when the graph is going down, and reach the bottom at that point when we’re going to stop fighting and are ready to give up. Then the upward rise starts and we get to splurge on all the experience and knowledge we’ve gained. Ad infinitum. There could be amplitude differences but I believe the lives of all people are more or less like this.

The rise can be intoxicating but it comes with a burden. The fall can be relentless but it helps us throw the unnecessary baggage and search for the real self. And it is in that pursuit for the real and concrete that all true learning happens. Learning from life seeps so deeply into us that it’s less something we follow and apply, and more what shapes us and makes us. Leading a lifestyle that avoids the temptation to jump off the edge of the cliff is precautionary living. It is bound to fail.

“Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is..” -CS Lewis

Only a man who’s fallen into the abyss, fought with the demons and crawled back is more confident. Now the edge beckoning him is not something to be afraid of. It is a story he tells others, feeling neither proud nor relieved, because failure is not something foreign. It is within him and he knows that one day he will have to face it again. Till then though, So long Charlie.

Monthly Column- Part 1

Apparently, my photo came on a American theatre screen. Varun told me. And that's thanks to this writing gig Bujjimama got me. He just started writing this column and he wanted me to furnish a bio for him in third person. I did. Then he told me to contribute a monthly column as well. I said I couldn't because I didn't have the discipline. He told me that's precisely why he wanted me to write. So here's my post for July.

--

Life as a Checklist

People daydream a lot. It is their one way to escape the seeming pointlessness of everyday life. And to replicate the movies inside their head in the real world, they invariably consort to the checklist. You know, stuff like:

1. Learn Data Science to get a high paying job
2. Talk to S's father about our marriage
3. Backpack around Europe
4. Exercise regularly and have a great body
5. Read the Proust oeuvre before I die

You know what they're like. All of you have them. Checklists are great, they give us a purpose in life, a list of objectives to achieve, carve a path through the wilderness. But they are the most foolproof way to get depressed. Show me any man and I'll show you a list of unmet goals. We know better than to assume that all our lives will be awesome if we check every one of those goals. And yet we keep writing them down, keep pushing the timelines, keep scratching them off. I suppose we don't know any other way to live.

As kids, our parents and the social circle created those checklists for us. And the method of implementation was coercion or castigation. Either I'll give you something if you achieve this, or if you're not a certain way we will not let you enter this exclusive club. And so the primary focus of childhood and adolescence is to achieve the goals already set out- learning to play the guitar, breaking in to prestigious colleges, buying that fancy bike and the like. But as we grow older and become more entrenched in our real selves, whatever they may be, and are comfortable in our little social circles, we are faced with the daunting task of taking up new targets and reaching them.

"I— finally, I have the body that I want, and that's a thing people really covet. It's a hard thing to achieve, and I did. And I'm going to tell you how to have exactly the body that you want. You just have to want a shitty body. That's all it is. You have to want your own shitty, ugly, disgusting body." -Louis CK

That's one way to get through the problem- With hedonism and indifference. If I have to have ambitions, let me be insouciant about them. If I can't achieve them, let me look down upon them. I call it The Dude Way (for those of you uninitiated, I can't recommend the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski enough). It's simply letting the Id take over. I think it's a great survival mechanism only if the bloody Superego didn't intervene from time to time.

We want to achieve things in life because our advanced minds keep telling us there's more to life than just Self-Preservation and Reproduction. We seek acceptance of people we look upto, we try to build narratives around our lives so that we are remembered even after we're gone, we yearn for freedom from the repetition of everydayness. And for that we want to be a certain way. Which is precisely the root of the problem. We don't want to do something as much as be seen doing something. The focus of our lives has shifted from the being to appearing. Geniuses are exempt from this problem because they seem to be enamoured by the act. But the rest of us mortals aren't passionate enough to be obsessed by one activity and lack discipline to work on it at the cost of everything else. And so we seek to emulate them. When an act becomes play, it is ego-annihilating. When an act becomes work, it becomes ego-inflating.

All of life is, essentially, a balance between surrender and discipline. How do we reconcile previously decided goals with present temptations? If my past me wanted to ride around the country on a motorcycle because of a romantic image in his head, and now that I have the bike and the time to do but don't have the inclination to do it, is it because I've outgrown that phase or I'm too scared to get going?

I once knew a man who said the moment you get something is the moment you lose it. The pursuit gives meaning to the thing being pursued, gives purpose to the pursuer. And that's how I see checklists too. They're just a random collection of traits and things we wish we had. Once we've achieved them, all that remains is the void. So all that we can do is keep making new ones. For what we intend to seek and who we wish to be defines the personality of our beings.

90s బ్లూస్

The seed for this story was planted a long time ago. I kept wanting to write it but it never happened mostly because I never sat down to finish it. And also that, like anyone's who's trying to create, I was shadowed by demons of procrastination, lack of confidence, fear of how the story would manifest itself and if I won't like its course, and that perpetual dilemma whether to write something as close to my heart with my imperfect craft or to safe keep it until I reached a certain level of mastery. Eventually though, the story happened because I was working on another story, and it wasn't going anywhere, and I kept missing deadlines given to Meher anna when inspiration finally stuck. The kind of inspiration that Bill Watterson talks about in one of Calvin and Hobbes' strips: Last minute panic. I finished the first draft in a state of daze in a few hours and when I read it, it didn't seem that bad. So, I sent it across for publication and I'm glad a few people liked it and made an effort to let me know. I'm humbled by their support.

--

90s బ్లూస్


Posted on సెప్టెంబర్ 5, 2014 by శిరీష్ ఆదిత్య


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మా ముత్తమ్మమ్మ డెభ్భైయేళ్ళ శాంతి జరిగినపుడు నాకు ఎనిమిదేళ్ళు. ఆ రోజు ఇంట్లో అంతా హడావిడి. ఎప్పుడో తెల్లవారుఝామున మొదలయిన పూజలు, సూర్యుడు మధ్యాకాశంలో తాండవం చేస్తున్నా ఇంకా ముగియడం లేదు. కార్యక్రమాలు అన్నీ అయిపోయేదాకా, చేసిన పులిహోర-బొబ్బట్లు ఎవ్వరికీ పెట్టేదిలేదని అమ్మ తీర్మానం చేసేసింది. పొద్దునే తాగిన గ్లాసుడు పాలు ఎప్పుడో ఆవిరైపోయాయి. అంత ఆకలితో అసలే చిరాగ్గా ఉన్న నన్ను చుట్టాలందరూ పిలిచి ఏం చదువుతున్నావ్, ఎలా చదువుతున్నావని అడుగుతున్నారు. అది సరిపోదన్నట్టు మా పెద్దతాత నన్ను దగ్గరకు పిలిచి పక్కనున్న ఇంకో పెద్దాయనకు ప్రదర్శిస్తున్నాడు.


“అరేయ్ పంకుగా, ఇట్రారా! వీడు మా ఆఖరి తోడల్లుడి మనవడండి. సరస్వతి కొడుకు. వట్టి అల్లరి పిడుగు. ఇలా చూసేలోపు అలా తుర్రుమంటాడు”


నేను చిరాగ్గా మొహం పెట్టడం చూసిన ఆ పెద్దాయన నవ్వి, “ఏం చదువుతున్నావు బాబు?”, అనడిగాడు.


“ఫోర్త్ క్లాస్ తాత”, అంటూ పట్టు వదిలించుకొని పారిపోబోయా.


“ఉండరా పిడుగా. స్కూల్లో చాలా అల్లరి చేస్తావట, మార్కులు కూడా తక్కువట. నాకన్నీ తెలుస్తూంటాయి. అమ్మమ్మ-తాతల గారాబమండి,” అని ఆ పెద్దాయనకు చెప్పసాగాడు.


అప్పుడే చేతిలో రెండు బిందెలు పట్టుకుని హడావిడిగా వెళుతున్న మామను చూసి,” యేరా చంటి. మీ పెద్దమ్మ అంటూంటుంది వీడు అచ్చం నీ పోలికేనని. చదువబ్బడం లేదుటకదా? ఈ వయసులోనే అదుపులో పెట్టాలి లేదంటే నీ లాగే గాలికి తిరుగుతూ ఎందుకూ పనికిరాకుండ పోతాడు”, అని నవ్వాడు మా పెద్దతాత.


“మా మామ ఏమి పనికిరానివాడు కాదు”, అన్నాన్నేను రోషంగా.


అంతలో మామ నవ్వుతూ, “వాడికంత కెపాకిటి లేదులే పెదనాన్న,” అన్నాడు.


“కెపాకిటి ఏవిట్రా?” అనడిగాడాయన ఆశ్చర్యంగా.


“కెపాకిటి తెలీదా? ఒకానొకప్పుడు ఒక స్కూల్లో ఒక పిల్లాడుండేవాడట. చదువులన్నీ బాగానే ఉండేవిగాని వాడికి ‘స’ సరిగ్గా పలికేది కాదు. ఒకరోజు వాడి టీచరు వాడి నాన్నను స్కూలుకు పిలిచి మీ అబ్బాయి ఎలెక్ట్రిసిటి ని ఎలెక్ట్రికిటి, పబ్లిసిటి ని పబ్లికిటి అంటాడు, మీరన్నా కాస్త చెప్పండనింది. దానికి ఆ తండ్రి, పోనీలెండి మేడం మా వాడి కెపాకిటియే అంత అన్నాడట”


దానికి ఆ పెద్దాళ్ళిద్దరూ నవ్వేసారు. మామ నన్ను కాపాడే హీరోగా మళ్ళీ అవతారమెత్తాడు.


నాకు ఊహ తెలిసినప్పటినుండి నేనూ మామా ఒకే జట్టు. నాన్నంటే ఇష్టమున్నా కొంచం భయముండేది. అమ్మ లాడు చేసినా అల్లరి మితిమీరితే కోప్పడేసేది. తాత అమ్మమ్మా గారాబం చేసినా, నాకూ అక్కకూ గొడవైతే, “ఆడపిల్ల కదరా, అందులోనూ అక్క. పోనీలేరా,” అని దాన్నే వెనకేసుకొచ్చేవారు. నేను ఎంత వెధవ పని చేసినా, ఎంత మంది తిట్టినా, ఎన్ని సబ్జెక్టులు ఫెయిలైనా మామ మాత్రం వెనకేసుకొచ్చేవాడు.


“పిల్లలే కదే అల్లరి చేసేది” అని అమ్మకి నచ్చజెప్పి, “అబ్బా చదువుతాడ్లేవే, వాడేదో పి.హెచ్.డి. చేస్తున్నట్టు” అని అమ్మమ్మ మీద కేకలేసి, “నేను చెప్తాను బావగారు, ఈ సారి తప్పకుండ టాప్ 5 లో వస్తావు కదరా” అని నాన్న ముందు విధేయత నటింపజేసి ఆఖరకు తాత చేతిలో చివాట్లు తినేవాడు.


“నువ్వు ఎలాగో ఎందుకూ పనికి రాకుండా పోతావు. వాడ్నెందుకురా చెడగొడతావు. వాడూ నీలాగే పైసకి పనికి రాడు” అని తాత మామ మీద కేకలేసేటప్పుడు నాకు చాలా కోపమొచ్చేది. ఏమి అనలేక గుడ్లురుముతూ, పళ్ళు కొరుకుతూ ఉన్న నన్ను చూసి తాత, “ఏరా మీ మామని అంటున్నాననా? నా ముందా నీ రోషం. ఇంత గారబం చేసే ఇలా చెడిపొయావు–”


“నేను ఫెయిల్ అయితే మామనెందుకంటావ్? నన్ను–”


అప్పుడు వినే వాడిని మామ స్వరంలో కోపం.


“చిన్నా! ఏంటది పెద్దాచిన్నా లేకుండ. నోర్మూయ్”, అని మామ అనగానే చల్లబడిపోయేవాడిని.


నా వల్ల ఎన్ని సార్లు తిట్లు తిన్నా, ఒక్కసారి కూడా పరీక్షల కోసం చదువుకో అని చెప్పలేదు మామ. పరీక్షలంటె ఎప్పుడూ లెక్క లేదు మామకి.


అమ్మ మామలు ఇద్దరే కావడం వల్లనేమో ఇద్దరికీ ఒకరి మీద ఒకరికి చాలా మమకారం. అమ్మ మీద ప్రేమంతా అక్క మీద, నా మీద చూపించేవాడు. నా చిన్నప్పటి నుండి నావన్నీ మామ పోలికలని అందరూ అనేవారు. దాంతో తెలిసీ తెలియకుండానే మా ఇద్దరి మధ్య చాలా గాఢమైన బంధం ఏర్పడిపోయింది. నా చిన్నతనంలో మేము అమ్మమ్మ-తాతల ఇంటి దగ్గరే ఉండేవాళ్ళం. అప్పుడే మామ డిగ్రీ అయిపోయి, చిన్నా చితకా ఉద్యోగాలు చేస్తూ, తను పుట్టి పెరిగిన ఆ కాలనీలోనే తన స్నేహితులతో తిరుగుతూ, సినిమాలు చూస్తూ, ఏవేవో పుస్తకాలు చదువుతూ ఉండేవాడు. తాత భాషలో చెప్పాలంటే లక్ష్యం లేకుండ తిరిగేవాడు. ఆ రోజుల్లో నేను కొన్ని రాత్రులు మా ఇంట్లో పడుకుంటే మిగతా రాత్రులన్నీ మామ పక్కలోనే. తను ఏవేవో చెప్తూండేవాడు, నేను కళ్ళార్పకుండ వింటూండేవాడిని. మామకి వ్యాపారం చేయాలని కోరిక కానీ స్తోమత సరిపోదు. ఆ ప్రయత్నంలో కొత్త కొత్త విషయాలు తెలుసుకుంటూ, పరిచయాలు పెంచుకుంటూ తాహతుకి మించిన ప్లాన్లు వేసేవాడు.


తాతకేమో మామ ఏ బాంకు లోనో, గవర్నమెంట్లోనో ఉద్యోగం సంపాదించాలనుండేది. మామకి ఆ జీవితం ససేమిరా ఆమోదం కాదు.


“ప్రతి నెలాఖరుకు జీతం చేతికొస్తుంది. ఏ పేచీ ఉండదు. రాజా లాంటి ఉద్యోగంరా అది”, అని తాత అనేవాడు.


దానికి మామ, “నాకొద్దు అలాంటి జీవితం. నచ్చిన పని చేస్తూ నలుగురికి అన్నం పెట్టే పని చేయాలి. ఏదో తిన్నామా, పడుకున్నామా అనుకోడానికి నేను కూపస్తమండూకాన్ని కాదు నాన్న”, అని తిరుగుజవాబిచ్చేవాడు.


అమ్మమ్మ గొడవ చల్లార్చే లోపే తాత మళ్ళీ అందుకొని, “అయినా చేతకానివాడి మాటలివన్నీ. మనకు రానిది మనకొద్దూ, అఖ్కర్లేదూ అనుకుంటే హాయిగా బతికేయొచ్చు కదా,” అనేసరికి మామ కోపంగా వెళ్ళిపోయేవాడు.


ఈ తంతు దాదాపు ప్రతి రోజూ నడిచేది. మరీ పెద్ద వాగ్వివాదం అయిన నాడు మామ భోంచేయకుండా వెళ్ళిపోయేవాడు. తాత అప్పట్లో అన్ని మాటలు అన్నా, నేను పెద్దవుతున్న కొద్దీ ఆయన మాటల్లో తెలిసొచ్చింది ఆయనకు కొడుకు మీద ఎంత ప్రేమా, వాత్సల్యముందని.


ఆ మాటకొస్తే మా నాన్నకు కూడా బావమరిది మీద చాలా అభిమానం. ఎప్పుడూ మామతో చెప్పకపోయినా అమ్మతో అనడం నేను చాలా సార్లు విన్నాను. అమ్మ రాత్రి భోజనం వడ్డిస్తున్న సమయాల్లో, “సరస్వతి, చంటి తెలివైన వాడు. కానీ ఈ కాలంలో చేతిలో పట్టా లేనిదే మనం ఎంత యోగ్యులమైనా ఎవడూ పట్టించుకోడు. వాడిని ఎం.బి.ఎ చేయమను. మంచి ఉద్యోగావకాశాలు వస్తున్నాయి. ఉద్యోగంలో చేరితే కాస్త బాధ్యత తెలుస్తుంది. ఇక ఒక రెండు మూడేళ్ళల్లో ఓ మంచి పిల్లని చూసి కట్టబెడితే వాడి బతుకు వాడు బతుకుతాడు. వాడికున్న తెలివితేటలకి ఇంకా ఆ అల్లరి మూకతో తిరిగి భవిష్యత్తు నాశనం చేసుకునేదాక మనమాగొద్దు… చాలు, పెరుగు వెయ్యి,” అంటూండే వాడు.


నాన్న అల్లరి మూక కింద జమకట్టిన వాళ్ళంతా మామ క్లోజ్ ఫ్రెండ్స్. మామ స్నేహితులు కావడంతో వాళ్ళూ నాకు మామలైపోయారు- రవి మామ, వాసు మామ, శీను మామ. క్రికెట్ ఆడటానికైనా, సినిమాలు చూడటానికైనా, కాలనీలో గొడవలకైనా కలిసి వెళ్ళేవాళ్ళు. నేను కాస్త పెద్దైన తరువాత నన్ను కూడా వెంటబెట్టుకొని తిరిగేవాడు మామ. నా జీవితపు మొట్టమొదటి ఫస్ట్ డే, ఫస్ట్ షో చిరంజీవి సినిమా మామే తీసుకెళ్ళాడు సుదర్శన్ 70mmలో. నేను నేర్చుకున్న మొట్టమొదటి బూతు కూడా మామ దగ్గరే. మామకప్పట్లో ఒక కవాసాకి బైకుండేది. ఇప్పుడు ఆలోచిస్తూంటే డొక్కు బండి అనిపిస్తున్నా, అప్పట్లో దాని టాంకు మీద కూర్చొని వెళుతోంటే ఏదో రథం మీద స్వారీ చేస్తున్న ఫీలింగుండేది. అలా ఓ రోజు నేనూ, మామ బండి మీద పోతూంటే దారికడ్డొచ్చిన ఒకడ్ని మామ ‘బాడకవ్’ అని తిట్టాడు. ఆ పదం ఎందుకో నాకు చాలా నచ్చేసింది. కొన్ని రోజుల తరువాత అమ్మ వంట చేస్తూ నన్ను పక్కన కూర్చోబెట్టుకొని చదివిస్తోంది. ఏదో మాటల్లో అమ్మ, “హరి వాళ్ళ అమ్మ కనబడిందిరా కూరగాయల షాపులో. వాడికి మళ్ళీ ఫస్ట్ రాంక్ అట. భలే పద్ధతిగా ఉంటాడు కదరా ఆ పిల్లాడు” అని వాడిని మెచ్చుకోగానే వాడి మీద నాకున్న అక్కసంతా ఒకేసారి బయటికొచ్చి, “వాడు బాడ్కౌ గాడు” అనేసా.


అమ్మ మొహంలో సట్టున వచ్చిన కోపాన్ని చూడగానే అర్థమైంది నేను చచ్చానని. అనుకున్నట్టే చెంప ఛెళ్ళుమంది. “ఎక్కడ నేర్చుకుంటున్నావురా ఇలాంటి మాటలు,” అని అరిచింది. నేనేం మాట్లాడలేదు. బాగా కొట్టింది. నా ఏడుపు ఆగిన తరవాత తను ఏడుస్తూనే మందు రాసింది.


ఈ సమయానికే ఇండియాలో సాఫ్టువేరు బూమ్ వచ్చేసినా మామకి సాఫ్టువేరు పైన ఆసక్తి లేకపోవడంతో ఇన్నాళ్ళూ ప్రయత్నం చేయలేదు. కానీ తాత అప్పుచేసి ఇల్లు కట్టడం వలన ఆర్థిక సమస్యలు మొదలయ్యాయి. అవకాశాలు బాగుంటాయని నలుగురూ చెబితే మామ ఒరకిల్ నేర్చుకున్నాడు. అప్పుడే నేను అయిదవ తరగతి తప్పడంతో అమ్మా నాన్న నన్ను హాస్టల్లో వేయడానికి నిర్ణయించుకున్నారు.


నేను హాస్టలు జీవితానికి అలవాటు పడే కాలానికి మామ బిజీ అయిపోయాడు. అమెరికా వెళ్ళే అవకాశం రావడంతో, అక్కడొక నాలుగు రాళ్ళు ఎక్కువ సంపాదించొచ్చని ఇష్టం లేకున్నా వెళ్ళాలని నిశ్చయించుకున్నాడు. తన ప్రయాణం వారంలో అనగా ఇంట్లో పనులు మొదలైపోయాయి. ఎవరెవరో చుట్టాలు వచ్చి వెళుతున్నారు.


“నాకు తెలుసండి, వీడు ఎప్పటికైనా ప్రయోజకుడవుతాడని. వయసు ప్రభావం వల్ల కాస్త నిర్లక్ష్యంగా కనిపించేవాడే గానీ తెలివితేటలకి ఎటువంటి కొదవా లేదు,” అని ఒక పెద్దావిడ కనబడిన వాళ్ళకి చెబుతోంది.


అందరికీ మామ అమెరికాకి వెళుతున్నాడన్న సంతోషం, వెళ్ళిపోతున్నాడు అన్న దుఃఖంగా మారింది. ఇంట్లో వాళ్ళంతా ఎవరి పనుల్లో వాళ్ళు నిమగ్నమైనారు. తాత వచ్చిన వాళ్ళందరి ముందు మామని పిలిచి ఎక్కడికెళ్తున్నాడో, ఏం పనో చెప్పమంటున్నాడు. అమ్మమ్మ పొళ్ళూ, పచ్చళ్ళూ కడుతూ కళ్ళు తుడుచుకుంటోంది.


“ఎందుకమ్మమ్మా ఏడుస్తున్నావ్?” అని అడిగితే, నవ్వి ముద్దుపెట్టి అరిసిచ్చింది. అమ్మేమో వచ్చిన వాళ్ళకి కాఫీలిస్తూ మామ తీసుకెళ్ళాళ్సిన ఐటమ్స్ లిస్టు చెక్ చేసుకుంటోంది.


ప్రయాణం రోజు రానే వచ్చింది. మంచి బట్టలేసుకొని, మొహాలకు పౌడర్లు రాసుకొని నాలుగు కార్లల్లో జనం కిక్కిరిసి ఎయిర్పోర్టుకు బయలుదేరాము. నేనూ మామ పక్కనే కూర్చున్నా కారులో ఎవరమూ పెద్దగా మాట్లాడలేదు. ఎయిర్పోర్టుకు చేరి లగేజి అప్పగించేసాక, ఒక్కొకర్నీ పలకరిస్తూ మామ నా దగ్గరికొచ్చాడు. నేను ఏడుపాపుకోడానికి ప్రయత్నిస్తూ తల నేలకు వాల్చి గుంభనంగా నిలుచున్నాను. మామ దగ్గరకు రావడం గమనించి తలపైకెత్తి బలవంతంగా నవ్వాను.


“హీరో! ఇంక నువ్వే అన్నీ చూసుకోవాలి. పెద్దవాడివౌతున్నావు. అమ్మమ్మ-తాతలకు ఏం కావాలన్నా దగ్గర్నుండి చూసుకో. అమ్మ జాగ్రత్త. అక్కతో కొట్లాడొద్దు. నీకు ఏం కావాలన్నా నాకు చెప్పు. సరేనా? నేను తీసుకొస్తాను,” అన్నాడు.


నేను తెచ్చిపెట్టుకున్న నిగ్రహం కోల్పోయాను. మామను గట్టిగా పట్టుకొనేడ్చాను.


మామ వెళ్ళిన కొన్ని రోజులకు మామ సామాన్లు సర్దుతూంటే ఒక డబ్బా నిండా పాత హిందీ సినిమా పాటల కాసెట్లు దొరికాయి. రఫీ, కిషోర్, ముకేష్ లంటే మామకు చాలా ఇష్టం. మళ్ళీ వాళ్ళల్లో కిషోర్ కుమార్ పాటలంటే ప్రాణం. ఆయన పాటలు వింటునప్పుడు మామ ప్రపంచాన్ని మరిచిపోయి తన్మయత్వంలో మునిగిపోయేవాడు. జిందగి ఎక్ సఫర్ ట్యూన్ని అద్భుతంగా విజిల్ వేసేవాడు. ఆ కాసెట్లు వినీ వినే నేను రఫీ మీద ఇంత అభిమానం పెంచుకున్నానేమో.


తను అమెరికా వెళ్ళిన కొత్తలో మేమిద్దరం తరచూ మాట్లాడినా క్రమేపి మా మధ్య మాటలు తగ్గాయి. మామ బిజీ అయిపోయాడు. నేనూ నా హాస్టలు జీవితంలో మునిగిపోయాను. అమ్మ దగ్గరో, అమ్మమ్మ దగ్గరో ఉన్నప్పుడు మామ ఫోను వస్తే ఓ రెండు నిమిషాలు మాట్లాడేవాడిని. కుశల ప్రశ్నలు వేసుకున్నాక ఏం మాట్లాడాలో తోచేది కాదు.


వెళ్ళిన నాలుగేళ్ళకి మామ తిరిగొచ్చాడు. ఏం తేవాలో చెప్పమన్నాడు. అమ్మ ముందే హెచ్చరించడంతో ఏమొద్దన్నా. మామే బట్టలూ, విడియో గేమ్సు తెచ్చాడు. అమెరికా బట్టలేసుకొని తిరుగుతున్నందుకు నేను స్కూల్లో చిన్న సైజు సెలెబ్రిటీనైపోయా.


మామ పెళ్ళైంది. అప్పుడే మా నానమ్మ చనిపోవడంతో మామతో ఎక్కువ సమయం ఉండే అవకాశం దొరకలేదు. కళ్ళు మూసి తెరిచేలోపు మామ వెళ్ళిపోయాడు. చూస్తూనే ఏళ్ళు గడిచిపోయాయి. టెన్త్, ఇంటరు ఎటువంటి విపరీత పరిణామాలు లేకుండా నేను గట్టెక్కేయడంతో అమ్మా నాన్న ఊపిరి పీల్చుకున్నారు. అక్కతో వాళ్ళకు ఏనాడూ ఏ ఇబ్బందీ కలగలేదు. ఇంక నేను కూడా ఓ దారిలో పడ్డానన్న నమ్మకం వారికి కలిగింది.


ఇంటరు తరవాత ఏం చేయాలో స్పష్టత లేకపోవడంతో అందరిలాగానే నేనూ ఇంజినీరింగ్ లోనే చేరాను. మొదటి సంవత్సరం ఏదోలా గట్టెక్కిచ్చేసినా, రెండో సంవత్సరం నుండి బంకులు, నైటౌట్లు, కొత్త అలవాట్లు, కొత్త స్నేహాలు, అమ్మాయిలు, గొడవల పుణ్యాన అట్టెండెన్సు లేదని ఓ సంవత్సరం డీటెయిన్ చేసారు.


ఆ విషయం తెలిసిన రాత్రి నుండి అమ్మానాన్నలు నాతో మాట్లాడడం మానేసారు. అక్క మేమిద్దరమే ఉన్నప్పుడు తిట్టినా, వాళ్ళ ముందు వెనకేసుకొచ్చే ప్రయత్నం చేసింది. “అమ్మ, చాలా మంది డీటెయిన్ అవుతారు. అది పెద్ద విషయం కాదు లేవే. అయినా ఇది ఒక రకంగా మంచిదే, ఫౌండేషన్ బాగవుతుంది,” అని చెప్పింది. అమ్మ ఏమీ మాట్లాడలేదు కానీ నాన్న లేచి వెళ్ళిపోయారు.


అమ్మమ్మ-తాతలకి విషయం తెలిసినప్పుడు తాత, “ఇప్పుడన్నా కాస్త బుద్ది తెచ్చుకొని పద్ధతిగా ఉండరా! మీ అమ్మ-నాన్న ఎంత కష్టపడి నిన్ను చదివిస్తున్నారో నీకు తెలియనిది కాదు. వాళ్ళ కష్టానికి నువ్వు ఇచ్చే విలువ ఇదా”, అని మందలించాడు. అమ్మమ్మ మాత్రం “చెప్తూనే ఉన్నా, నీ స్నేహితులు సరిగ్గా లేర్రా అని. వాళ్ళళ్ళో ఒక్కడన్నా ఫెయిలయ్యాడా- లేదు కదా? నిన్ను మాత్రం చెడగొట్టారు గాడ్ది కొడుకులు. ఇంకోసారి ఎవడన్నా ఇంటికి రానివ్వు వాళ్ళ పని చెప్తాను”, అని అరిచింది. నాకు నవ్వొచింది. చిన్నప్పటినుండి నేను ఏ వెధవ పని చేసినా అది నా తప్పు కాదు కానీ వేరే వాడు నన్ను చెడగొడుతున్నాడని నమ్మే అమ్మమ్మ పిచ్చి ప్రేమ మీద ఆప్యాయత కలిగింది.


అమ్మ మామకి ఈ విషయం చెప్పినప్పుడు మామ ఏమంటాడో అని భయపడ్డా. పెద్దగా తిట్టలేదు కానీ ఒకప్పటిలాగా జోకులేసి ఏం పర్వాలేదనీ చెప్పలేదు. చేసేపని నచ్చకపోతే నచ్చిన పని చేయమన్నాడు. ఆయనే ఉంటే తెల్లచీరెందుకని, ఏం చేయాలో ఏం ఇష్టమో తెలిస్తే ఇంత గొడవెందుకని నోటిదాకా వచ్చింది.


అంతలోనే మామడిగాడు, “మొన్న నువ్వు పంపిన స్ట్రీట్ ఫొటోలు చూసాను. బాగున్నాయి. ఏం కెమెరా?”


“ఇంట్లో దొరికిన ఏదో పాత కెమెరా మామ. నిజంగా బాగున్నాయా?” అని ఆత్రంగా అడిగాను.


“ఆఁ. సీనుగాడు చూసి ప్రామిస్ ఉందన్నాడు. Keep at it”, అనేసరికి నా సంతోషం కట్టలు తెంచుకుంది. మాకు తెలిసిన వాళ్ళళ్ళో ఆయన ఉత్తమ ఫోటోగ్రాఫర్. ఆయన మెచ్చుకున్నాడంటే బానే తీస్తానేమోనన్న ఆత్మవిశ్వాసం పెరిగింది. ఎలానో కాలేజీ లేదు, తిరగడానికి ఫ్రెండ్సూ ఖాళీగా లేరు అందుకని కెమెరా తీసుకొని రోడ్లమీద పడ్డా. మొదట్లో ఇంటి చుట్టుపక్క పరిసరాలు, పక్షులు, సూర్యోదయాలూ లాంటి నేచర్ ఫొటొగ్రఫీ వైపు మొగ్గు చూపించినా నెమ్మదిగా స్ట్రీట్ ఫొటొగ్రఫీ వైపు దారి మళ్ళాను. తెల్లవారుఝామున పని కోసం ఎదురు చూస్తున్న కూలీలు, రంజాన్ రాత్రుల్లో పాతబస్తీలో కనిపించే జనాలూ, బాంబు బ్లాస్టు అవగానే ఆ పరిసరాలు, క్రికెట్ మ్యాచుల్లో కోలాహలం సృష్టించే ప్రేక్షకులు- ఇలా మనిషి అనబడే సోషల్ యానిమల్ యొక్క వేరు వేరు కోణాలు తెలుసుకోవాలనిపించింది. అప్పటికే మామ ఎవరితోనో మంచి కెమెరా పంపి దానితో ఒక చిన్న నోటు జెతచేసాడు: Go, Capture Life. దానితో టెక్నాలజీ పైన దృష్టి పెట్టాను. ఐ.సొ.ఓ, షట్టర్ స్పీడ్, అపెర్చర్ సైజ్, ఫోకల్ లెంత్ తదితర విషయాలను అధ్యయనం చేసి, ప్రయోగాలు చేయడం మొదలెట్టాను. నేను తీసిన ఒక ఫొటొ ఒక ఆన్లైన్ మ్యాగజిన్ లో అచ్చైంది. బ్లాక్&వైట్- ఒక కారు అద్దంలోంచి ఒక పిల్లాడు బయటకి చూస్తూంటే, ఆ అద్దం మీద పడ్డ లేత ప్రతిబింబంలో అదే వయసు పిల్లాడింకొకడు పేపర్లమ్ముతున్నాడు. చాలా మంది బాగుందన్నారు. అమ్మ గర్వ పడింది, అక్క మెచ్చుకుంది. నాన్నతో ఇంకా మాటల్లేవు.


కాలేజీ మళ్ళీ మొదలయింది, ఆవారా తిరుగుళ్ళు తగ్గాయి. మార్కులు తారాస్థాయికి చేరకపోయినా, పాసు మాత్రం అయ్యాను. ఫొటొగ్రఫీ ఒక వ్యసనంగా మారింది. దాని గురించి విపరీతంగా చదివాను, ఫోటో ఫీచర్స్ తీయడం మొదలెట్టాను. ధర్నాలు, కొట్లాటలు, పండుగలు, ఎలెక్షన్సు, జాతరలు, నుమాయిష్- ఇలా జనం ఎక్కడ ఉంటే అక్కడికెళ్ళి ఫోటోలు తీసేవాడిని. చిన్నప్పటినుండి చాలా జాగ్రత్తగా పెంచబడి, అందమైన, భద్రమైన ప్రపంచం నా చుట్టూ సృష్టిస్తే అందులో పదిలంగా పెరిగిన నాకు బయట ప్రపంచం ఎలా ఉంటుందో అర్థమైంది. సినిమాల్లో, పుస్తకాల్లో ఉండే మెరుగుపెట్టిన ప్రపంచం కాక యధార్థలోకమెదురైంది. ఫోటోలు అచ్చవుతున్నాయన్న సంతోషం ఉన్నా, కాస్తో కూస్తో డబ్బులొస్తున్నాయని ఉన్నా ఓ దశ తరువాత వాటికి పెద్ద పట్టింపు లేకుండా పోయింది. ప్రపంచాన్ని చూడ్డానికి వెళ్ళిన నాకు జీవితం యెదురైంది. మనుషులు ఇన్ని రకాలుగా ఉంటారని, వాళ్ళ జీవన విధానాలు నా జీవితానికి ఇంత భిన్నంగా ఉంటుందని తెలిసొచ్చింది. ఈ దృశ్యాలు చూడ్డానికీ, ఈ ప్రదేశాలు వెళ్ళడానికీ, ఈ మనుషులను కలవడానికీ, నాలోని అనేక రూపాలను పరిచయం చేసుకోడానికీ కెమెరా ఒక సాకు మాత్రమే అయింది.


మొత్తానికి ఇంజినీరింగ్ పూర్తిచేసి ఫుల్-టైం ఫోటోగ్రాఫర్ని అయిపోయా. ఈ విషయం నాన్నకి పెద్దగా నచ్చకపోయినా అడ్డు చెప్పలేదు. మామ చాన్నాళ్ళ తరువాత పిల్లలని తీసుకొని ఇండియాకొచ్చాడు. అమ్మమ్మ తాతలు తమ వారసులను చూసుకొని మురిసిపోయారు. కొడుకు ఎప్పటికన్నా తమ దగ్గరకు వచ్చేస్తాడని నమ్మినవాళ్ళకి, కొడుకిక చుట్టపుచూపు గానే రాగలడని అర్థం చేసుకోడానికి చాన్నాళ్ళే పట్టింది. వారూ అమెరికాలో సర్దుకోలేరని నిర్ణయించేసుకొని ఆ ఆలోచనలు కట్టి బయట పడేసారు. కొడుకొచ్చినప్పుడే పదివేలని సర్దిచెప్పుకున్నారు. మామని కలిసి చాలా ఏళ్ళు కావడంతో ముందు కొంచెం జంకాను. కానీ రెండు రోజుల్లో మొహమాటం పటాపంచలైపొయింది. మామ నాకోసం తెచ్చిన హెన్రి కార్టియర్-బ్రెస్సో పుస్తకం చూసి నివ్వెరపోయాను. ఇన్నేళ్ళ తరవాత, ఇంత దూరం తర్వాత కూడా తనను ఒకప్పుడు హీరో వర్షిప్ చేసిన అల్లుడిని ఎలా మంత్రముగ్ధుడ్ని చేయాలో మామకే తెలిసింది. ఇదే మాటంటె నవ్వాడు.


“నేనూ ఇవన్నీ చేసొచ్చినవాడినేరా. ఇంక చెప్పు నీ గర్ల్ ఫ్రెండ్ సంగతులు”, అని మాట మార్చాడు.


“దాని గురించొద్దు మామ”


“ఎందుకు రా? ఏమయింది?”


“బ్రేకప్. వదిలెయ్”


మళ్ళీ ఆ ప్రస్తావనెత్తలేదు.


తను అమెరికాకు తిరిగి వెళ్ళిపోతున్న రోజు మళ్ళీ దాని గురించి రెండు మాటలన్నాడు.


“ఇప్పుడు నీకు బాధగా ఉంటుంది, నాకు తెలుసు. జీవితంలో ఇలాంటి అమ్మాయి ఇంక దొరకదు అనిపిస్తుంది. మీ ఇద్దరి మధ్య ఏం జరిగిందో నాకు తెలియదు. ఆ అమ్మాయి కారణాలు ఆ అమ్మాయికుండుంటాయి. కానీ ఎవరి కోసమో నీ ప్రవృత్తిని మార్చుకోకు. ఇంకో అమ్మాయి వస్తుంది దానికి ఢోకా లేదు. ఇప్పుడు నీలో ఎంత బాధ ఉన్నా అది తొలిగిపోతుంది. ఇది నిజం. నచ్చిన పని చేయి. మిగతా విషయాలన్ని వాటంతటవే వస్తాయి. ఒక వయసు దాటాక compromise లూ, sacrifice లూ తప్పవు. ఇప్పుడైనా నీకిష్టమొచ్చినట్టుండు. డబ్బులేమన్నా కావాల్సొస్తే అడుగు,” అని చెప్పాడు.


తను వెళ్ళిపోతున్నప్పుడు చూస్తూ ఉండిపోయా. తనంటే ఎందుకంత ఇష్టమో ఆ రోజు కొంత అర్థమైనట్టనిపించింది.


అక్క పి.జి. తర్వాత ఉద్యోగం చేయడంతో నాన్న మీద ఆర్థిక భారం తగ్గడమే గాక నాక్కూడా వెంటనే డబ్బు సంపాదించాల్సిన అవసరం పడలేదు. ఆ రోజుల్లో ఎవడైనా తిండి పెట్టి, ప్రయాణం చార్జీలిస్తానంటే అసైన్మెంటు మీద వెళ్ళిపోయేవాడిని. ఎక్కడెక్కడికో ప్రయాణాలు. రోజూ కొత్తవారితో పరిచయాలు. ఏది దొరికితే అది తిని, ఎక్కడ అలిసిపోతే అక్కడే పడుకునేవాడిని. రెండు జతల బట్టలు, నా కెమెరా కిట్. ఓ నెలా రెణ్ణెళ్ళు ఇలా తిరిగి బక్కచిక్కి, గడ్డం పెరిగి, ఎండలో తిరిగి తిరిగి నల్ల బడిన కొడుకుని అమ్మ ఒక పదిహేను రోజుల పాటు మేపి సభ్య సమాజానికి పనికొచ్చేలా చేసేది. కొంచం కోలుకున్నాక కొత్త అసైన్మెంటుకు సై.


ఆ రోజుల్లో మొహం మీద నవ్వు చెదిరేది కాదు. స్నేహితులకు నా కథలు చెబుతూంటే నోళ్ళెళ్ళబెట్టి వినేవాళ్ళు. వాళ్ళు లక్షలు సంపాదిస్తున్నా, నా జేబులో ఇంకా చిల్లరే ఉన్నా నచ్చిన పని చేస్తున్నానన్న గర్వం ఉండేది. వాళ్ళ గొంతుల్లో ఈర్ష్య విన్నప్పుడు నేను వెళుతున్న దారి సరైనదే అని నమ్మకం కలిగేది.


ఇలా ఒక మూడునాలుగేళ్ళు తిరిగాక బోరు కొట్టి ఫ్రీలాన్స్ వదిలేసి ఆఫీసుకెళ్ళే ఉద్యోగంలో చేరా. బానే ఉండింది, అదీ కొత్త అనుభవమే కదా. అక్క పెళ్ళి కుదిరింది. లవ్ మారేజ్. అబ్బాయి ‘యోగ్యుడని’ నాన్న ఒప్పేసుకున్నాడు. తను నాకు ముందునుంచే తెలుసు. అక్కంటే చాలా ఇష్టం. దానితో అది సంతోషంగా ఉంటుందని నమ్మకం కలిగింది. పెళ్ళి తరువాత వాళ్ళు అమెరికా వెళ్ళిపోవడంతో అమ్మా నాన్నల దగ్గరగా నేను హైదరాబాద్ వచ్చేసా.


రోజులు బానే గడుస్తునాయి. ఉద్యోగంలో కొంత మోనాటొనీ ఏర్పడడంతో మారదామా అని ఆలోచిస్తున్నా. నాన్న వాళ్ళు ఇన్నిన్నేళ్ళు ఒకే ఉద్యోగం ఎలా చేసేవారో తెలియడంలేదు. అమ్మేమో పెళ్ళి చేసుకోమంటోంది. నేను ఇప్పుడప్పుడే ఆ ప్రస్తావన ఎత్తొద్దని చెప్పేసా. అసలు ఈ విషయాలన్నీ ఇప్పుడెందుకు గుర్తొస్తున్నాయంటే మామ వస్తున్నాడు. మొన్నే అక్కకి కొడుకు పుట్టాడు. అక్కడ అమెరికాలోనే. కానీ వాడి బారసాల ఇక్కడ చేద్దామని వస్తున్నారు. తాత ఆరోగ్యం అంతంత మాత్రంగా ఉండడంతో తాతను కూడా చూసినట్టుంటుందని మామ కూడా వస్తున్నాడు.


ఇపుడు నేనూ మామనైపోయాను. అదొక వింత అనుభూతి. తెలియకుండానే పెద్దరికం వచ్చేసిందనిపిస్తోంది. కానీ అక్కావాళ్ళు అమెరికాలో ఉంటారు. ఆ బుడ్డోడికి మామ ఉన్నాడని తెలుస్తుంది కానీ మామ చేతుల్లో పెరగడు. వాడి వల్ల వాడి మామ తిట్లుతినడు. వాడికి వాడి మామ హీరో కాడు. ఇవన్నీ ఆలోచిస్తే కొంచం బాధేసింది.


అమెరికా మేళం దిగనే దిగింది. మా అమ్మ ఇన్నాళ్ళూ కొడుకు మీద వలక బోసిన ప్రేమ మనవడి మీదికి మళ్ళించింది. అక్క కొడుకుని అమ్మకప్పగించేసి ఫుల్ టైం రెస్ట్ తీసుకోవడం మొదలెట్టింది.


బారసాలకి నేనే దగ్గరుండి అన్నీ ఏర్పాట్లు చేసా. వాడి కోసం ఏమన్నా చేసే అవకాశం మళ్ళీ ఎప్పుడు దొరుకుతుందో అని.


బారసాల రోజు ఫంక్షన్ హాల్ నిండిపోయింది. అందరి మొహాలూ సంతోషంతో వెలిగిపోతున్నాయి. నేను దూరంగా నుంచొని అంతా తీక్షణంగా పరిశీలిస్తున్నాను. ఫోటోగ్రాఫర్ గా జీవితాన్ని కాస్త దూరం నుండి చూస్తూ ఫ్రేం చేసుకోడానికి ఏ కంపోసిషన్ బాగుందో, ఎలా చూపిస్తే అందంగా కనబడుతుందో అని ఆలోచించడం అలవాటైపోయినట్టుంది. మామ పక్కనొచ్చి నుంచోవడం కూడా గమనించలేదు.


“ఏరా! ఏదో చాలా సీరియస్ గా ఆలోచిస్తున్నట్టు నటిస్తున్నావు. ఏంటి విషయం,” అనడిగాడు.


“ఏం లేదు మామ, తెలియకుండానే రోజులు గడిచిపోతున్నాయి. అక్క పెళ్ళి మొన్నే అయినట్టుంది అప్పుడే దానికొక కొడుకు,” అన్నాను.


“రోజు లేవిట్రా, తెలియకుండా ఏళ్ళు గడిచిపోతాయి. నువ్వు ఇంకా నిన్నగాక మొన్న నన్ను ఆ జురాసిక్ థీమ్ పార్క్ కు ఛావగొట్టి తీసుకెళ్ళినట్టుంది”


“ఏ జురాసిక్ పార్క్ మామ– ఓ అదా!”, అని గుర్తొచ్చి నవ్వాను, “ఎన్నేళ్ళ కింద కదా. మరుసటి రోజు నాకు ఎగ్జాం, నీ బండి రిపెయిర్, తాత మోపెడ్ మీద ఎక్కడో పటాన్ చెరు పొయాం కదా.. జమానా అయింది”, అన్నాను.


మామ ఐస్క్రీం తింటుంటే గమనించాను: మీసంలో తెలుపు, కళ్ళ చుట్టూ క్రో-ఫీట్- ముసలితనపు ఛాయలు.


“ముసలోడివి అయిపోతున్నావు మామ”, అన్నాను పెద్దగా.


మామ నవ్వుతూ, “అది బాల నెరుపు లేరా”, అన్నాడు.


“అన్నట్టు మరిచిపోయా. మొన్నే అమ్మమ్మ నీ కంచం నాకిచ్చేసింది. మీ మామ నీకిచ్చింది. ఎప్పడి నుండో దాంట్లోనే తింటున్నాను కానీ, నీ కంచమే. ఇప్పుడు నాదట”


“ఆ బాదాం షేపు కంచమా? మా మామ నేను డిగ్రీ పాస్ అయిన తరవాత ఇచ్చాడు. వాళ్ళ మామకు వాళ్ళ మామ ఇచ్చాడని. జాగ్రత్తరా బాబూ! ఆ కంచానికి స్వతంత్ర భారత దేశనికన్నా పొడుగు చరిత్ర ఉంది.”


నేను నవ్వి, “ఇప్పుడీడు పుట్టాడుగా, వారసత్వానికి ఇంకో తరానికి కూడా డోఖా లేకుండ పోయింది”, అని ఊయల చుట్టూ గుమిగూడిన జనాన్ని, కళకళాడుతున్న అక్కని, సంతోషంతో మొహాలు వెలిగిపోతున్న అమ్మానాన్నలను చూసి గుండె బరువెక్కింది. నాక్కూడా తండ్రి కావాలనిపించింది. కానీ దాని కన్నా ముందు మామని– ప్రపంచంలో అత్యుత్తమ మామ అవ్వాలన్న కోరిక లేదు కానీ నేను నా మామని చేసిన హీరో వర్షిప్ లో ఓ పదో వంతు ఈ బుడ్డోడు నన్ను చేస్తే చాలనిపించింది. చూస్తూ ఉండిపోయాను.


మామ నా భుజం మీద చేయివేసి, “బాబూ చిన్న సైజు తత్వవేత్తగారూ, మీ దీర్ఘ తత్వచింతన అయిపోతే, పోయి గులాబు జామున్ తెచ్చుకుందాం,” అని కదిలాడు.


నేనో చిన్న నవ్వు నవ్వేసి మామ వెంట నడిచాను.

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